


You Dance Dreams

by lady_ragnell



Series: You Dance [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ballet, M/M, Operas, Oral Sex, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:20:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 61,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2530406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For most of college, Grantaire was hopeless over Enjolras, and everyone but Enjolras knew it. Now he’s worked to get over his crush, and for the most part, he's fine. When Combeferre asks him to choreograph and dance in the Midsummer Night’s Dream-inspired opera he composed as his senior thesis, Grantaire says yes, even though he’s cast opposite Enjolras, as Puck to his Oberon. The chance to dance is worth the potential problems, and he'll have his friends as a buffer.</p><p>He doesn't count on long hours of practicing and choreographing and <i>talking</i> together, while they try to figure each other and their futures out. As much as he tries to avoid it, it seems inevitable that he falls for Enjolras again, and this time it isn't a crush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Dance Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Beautiful Music Together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1732400) by [lady_ragnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell). 



> What a trip this was! It takes a village to make a Big Bang, so I have several people to thank.
> 
> First, **Nath /[Phileas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Phileas)** who made the most _beautiful_ art and also a wonderful fanmix for this story! [GO LOOK/LISTEN RIGHT NOW](http://lapieuvrebleue.tumblr.com/post/101250928304/my-art-for-lady-ragnells-story-you-dance-dreams).
> 
> Second, **Kate** , who is a generally excellent human being and also did a lovely beta for me, and **Samy** , who read as I went along and without whose encouragement this never would have been finished.
> 
> Last, the mods, for running a lovely and organized Big Bang, since it was my first time participating in one!
> 
>  **Notes** : There's a brief glossary in the end notes of some of the ballet terms if you're curious, and you can always ask me about more. Another important note! I listed "Beautiful Music Together" as an inspiration for this story, because they are set in the same universe, but THEY BOTH STAND ALONE. You do not have to read one to read the other, but if you want Cosette/Marius/Courfeyrac music majors, then you can read the whole universe if you like.
> 
> The title is from a quote by Gene Kelly: "You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams."

**September**

“Grantaire!”

Grantaire slows down at the sound of his name, and stops when he realizes it came from Combeferre, jogging to catch up with him as he crosses campus. “What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping to catch you, I've been wanting to talk to you. It's strange not having you in class with us.”

“It's strange not being there, but I had to schedule a class right in the middle of Theory, unfortunately, and Le Gros reminded me that I have more than enough credits for my minor.” Grantaire puts his hands in his pockets. “What's the special topic this semester? Still with Myriel?”

“Lamarque, and we're actually taking a history cross-list about the history of opera.”

“Must be convenient for you. Is the whole music department still planning on using your magnum opus as their senior recitals?”

Combeferre walks with his hands clasped behind his back, free of his omnipresent messenger bag, which is like seeing him naked. Grantaire doesn't think he's been more than twenty feet from that bag since freshman year, but apparently he's free of it today. “I wanted to talk to you about that, actually, because the answer is yes, but I need a favor.”

“Anything for the next Wagner.”

Combeferre winces like he always does when Wagner comes up in operatic conversation, which will never stop being hilarious, but he forges on anyway. “I don't know how much you know about _Midwinter_ , but thematically if not musically it's in pretty close dialogue with Britten's _Midsummer Night's Dream_ , which it has to be given how famous the opera is. But in Britten, Puck is a speaking role, not a sung one, and I wanted to take that a step farther.” He frowns. “I had the idea over the summer and I had to make one of my favorite arias an instrumental interlude as a result, but I think it would work well.”

“I am noting a distinct lack of questions.”

“I want Puck to be a dancer, and I want you to play him.” Combeferre lets his hands free as soon as he's said it, and Grantaire frowns down at the sidewalk, slowing down while he sorts through his initial reaction. “Before you answer, you should know it would be a lot of responsibility and a lot of effort, because the music is written but I'm not a choreographer, you would have to build your own part pretty much from scratch, but I don't trust anyone else to do the dancing. And if you managed to recruit a friend or two from the dance department, the adapted aria would work well as a duet with one of Oberon's courtiers, but that can be cut if necessary.”

Grantaire shrugs. “You know, mentioning responsibility and effort is not the best way to woo me into doing something.”

“We both know that's a lie, R. But I really don't want to pressure you. Tell me if you don't want to.”

“I think it could be interesting. And I'd offer to find you a more fey-looking Puck and just do the choreography, but honestly, if I'm going to be choreographing an opera I figure I should at least get some glory out of it.”

Combeferre smiles. “Then you'll do it?”

“I'll have to talk to my advisor and see if he has any objections, see if I can get some dance credit for it.”

“Let me know when everything is in place, I'll get you a copy of the score and the rough recordings, and then I'll get you in touch with Enjolras.”

Grantaire has too much control over his body to stumble, and then a second later doesn't know why he's surprised enough that it's a worry anyway. He's not sure what Enjolras has to do with this, but it's Combeferre. Enjolras always figures in somewhere. “Do I have to teach Enjolras to dance?” he asks. “Because in that case, no, I quit, you can con someone else into playing Puck.”

“Enjolras does not have to dance, but you do have a duet. Or a _pas de deux_. Some combination of the two, I suppose.” Combeferre sighs when Grantaire stops long enough to give him an impatient look. “Enjolras is Oberon, so the two of you have to work closely.” He pauses, and Grantaire doesn't fill the silence. “Will that be a problem?”

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “You mean are my two years of ridiculous crushing going to be a problem? Probably not. I've been over it since last year, if you must know.”

“I just wanted to make sure.”

That's quite enough of that subject. “So you've made him the villain of the piece?”

Combeferre grins, and Grantaire remembers why he likes him so much by the way it's a little wicked. “I told him that he could use the privilege society's reaction to his good looks gives him by playing the villain and showing what privilege does, and he couldn't argue after that.”

“You're my hero.” Grantaire gives himself a moment to really assess his ability to be calm and professional around Enjolras and decides that even if it doesn't quite work at least these days it won't be because he wants to write him sonnets and buy him chocolate. “I'll give you a call when I figure out whether I can do it or not, I guess? How fast are we going on this? Last I heard you weren't planning on your big world premiere until the end of the year.”

“I'm not, but I figured choreography would take time, and I'm still making occasional edits. I'm not happy with Joly and Bossuet's duet, I may have to rewrite it from scratch.”

“Senior year isn't going to suck as much as it could, I did my philosophy capstone last year and this can probably count as my dance capstone as well as some independent credit for choreography, so I should have some time to devote to it. I just wanted to know what kind of time frame I'm working with.”

Combeferre smiles. “Great. I'm still finalizing some casting decisions, but I'm hoping it's going to be a good production, for everyone's sake. I'll e-mail you all the files I've got as soon as you call me.”

“I have a meeting with Le Gros tomorrow afternoon, and I might be able to twist Floréal's arm and see if she would do some dancing with me, I'll let you know about both.”

“I appreciate it. I can't exactly pay anyone, but I'll lobby with you for course credit, and for anyone else who does it, and there are ways to count you as a TA so you don't have to pay for the privilege.”

Grantaire nods. “That sounds good.” He jerks his head towards the library. “I'm assuming that's your stop?”

“Yes, probably. I have a portfolio to start on for my education course. Thank you for your help, R, please be in touch when you can.”

Grantaire salutes, and grins when that makes Combeferre roll his eyes. “You'll be the first one to know.”

*

Le Gros was probably the best ballet dancer in the world for about five minutes, before he tore his ACL two times in three months, and that's the only reason Grantaire puts up with him. He's a big man with wide shoulders and a build that's more wrestler than dancer, but he knows what he's doing, and that's what keeps Grantaire signing up for his classes instead of Madame's, which Floréal says any sane person would do (right before she signs up alongside him).

Grantaire kind of hates him and the condescending, unimpressed look he gets on his face every time he's confronted with a student and more specifically Grantaire himself, but it's the enjoyable kind of hating.

“You expect to choreograph a whole opera,” Le Gros says, and there's that unimpressed look, right on cue. “With no choreography experience and especially no opera experience and with other dance commitments to do—or do you intend to leave Floréal without a partner?”

“I intend to purloin Floréal, actually. And you know I can put a dance together with her for the spring if she wants me to, no matter what else I'm doing.”

Le Gros gets a look on his face like he's thinking of the long, long list of Grantaire's previous sins, and the no-doubt longer one of his potential future ones, and then, to Grantaire's complete surprise, he smiles. “I think you can do it. And I can certainly get you credit for it, this semester and next, I can see no reason why it shouldn't count as your capstone performance, with anything you do in the spring showcase as a bonus.”

“Do you think I _should_ do it?”

“Could be very good for your potential career, could be very bad. If you're distracted, you aren't going to be paying much attention to auditions, especially in the spring when you'll be doing most of them, and I am assuming that you would like to find a place in a troupe.”

“That would be why I'm a dance major, yes.” Grantaire sighs. “I thought about it, I figure it might look good on a resume for some of the smaller companies, ones that don't have a dedicated choreographer, or the funds to hire a good one. And it's not like I'm going to be up for the Metropolitan Ballet.”

“You could if you wanted to be,” says Le Gros, which is the first time in four years that's been implied, much less said. “It's up to you, and a little bit to me, where you audition. And some places will be impressed by choreography, as long as your choreography is impressive. You don't perform anything without my say-so, understood?”

“Understood.” Grantaire fidgets. “You said in your e-mail that you wanted to talk to me about partnering, right?”

“I want to talk to you about your lifts, and how I'm going to start making Floréal wear a helmet if you don't control your arms better,” says Le Gros, and continues on one of his quiet, precise lambasts, ordering Grantaire to his feet to correct his form minutely even though Grantaire is still in jeans and sneakers and not ready for a dance lesson that involves very little dancing but somehow lots of sweating.

Le Gros keeps him for half an hour, teaching him and reteaching him arm exercises even though Grantaire has never once dropped Floréal and told her that she could feel free to kick him in the nuts if he ever did (he fears that day, because ballerinas universally kick like mules). By the time he's free, Grantaire is exhausted and grouchy, but he grabs his bag and swings by the practice rooms anyway. Floréal often practices in the afternoons, since she's a terrible morning person and does all her academic work in the mornings, and he needs to woo her into Combeferre's opera.

Sure enough, she's at the barre in one of her favorite practice rooms, pointe shoes on, going through a well-rehearsed warmup, which he's seen her do every private practice since they started working together. He knows it well enough that he knows the exact spot where he can say “Your _pliés_ aren't deep enough” without making her wobble and risking her ankles.

“Fuck you they aren't deep enough, do you want me to do a split?” she says, coming down to rest on flat feet, first position. “Irma wants to know if you want to take pole classes with us, they start in October.”

“Fuck, I'd really like to, but I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up with it, I'm supposed to be choreographing an opera. Do you want to be in an opera?”

Floréal breaks position and turns to him finally, eyebrows up. “Since when are you a choreographer?”

“Since the opera's composer asked me to, and since Le Gros gave his blessing. Do you? Wouldn't take as much commitment from you as it will from me, you'll have plenty of time to concentrate on auditions and shit, but it would look great on a resume. Plus Combeferre says there's a potential for a duet for us.”

“You know I can't resist that.” She goes back to the barre, moving into second position and continuing her routine. “Count me in. Especially if I get independent study for it. I think you'll be good at choreography, you did half our modern dance final last semester. Speaking of which, I want to do that again for a camera some time, let's pencil that in. You can get your one cute friend to do the filming.”

Grantaire tries to remember which one of his friends she probably means by that, since camera experience immediately rules out half of them. His friends are mostly performers, they aren't the ones filming if there's a chance to be in front of a camera. “Feuilly?” he guesses, since Feuilly is the one always putting a million pictures on Facebook after concerts and showcases.

“Possibly.” She takes a breath, centers herself, changes the angle of her neck. Watching Floréal practice is like watching an engineer put something together piece by piece. “You should take pole with Irma and me anyway, it's six weeks, one night a week, great for muscle strengthening.”

“I'll see if it's in the budget. You don't mind doing the opera?”

“Not if I get credit for it. I think it could be interesting. Very _Phantom_ , I always had Meg Giry aspirations.” She extends her leg to the side, rotates until the angle is perfect, brings it back and does it again. “So how much of this is because of the hot blond one you're supposed to be over?”

The problem with being really public about stupid crushes is that no one ever, ever believes that you're done with them, and Floréal has more reason than most not to trust it. “Not much of it. How much of the pole class thing is because of Wall Street?”

“I know you think you insult him when you call that, but he actually thinks it's really funny, and what I do in the bedroom with my boyfriend is exactly zero percent your business.”

“Young Republican? J Crew?”

“I have no idea what your thing against business majors is.” Third position. “And I have no idea how you put up with having so many music majors as friends, don't you ever want to get away from the performer's ego?”

“Not really, and I don't have a thing against business majors, I just have a thing against this one, because he stole my dance partner and the one true love of my life.”

“See, if I actually believed that, I would feel sorry for you.” She sighs and brings herself back to rest position, letting go of the barre. “I am bored by this conversation. I'll do your opera if you make sure we get to show off, and as long as I get credit. Make that happen, and I'll make it happen. And I'll put you down as a maybe for doing the class with Irma and me, I think it could be good for you. You never know when there will be a pole in your opera's set design, after all.”

“Great point, I'll be sure to suggest it to Combeferre.”

“You should. He's the composer? He's the hot one with the glasses and the piano skills, right?”

“Right.”

Floréal re-centers herself. “Now, you can either join me, or stop interrupting my practice.”

Grantaire makes a face. “I've got to go to the central office to beg for independent study credit for us both, so I'm afraid I can't. I'll text you about the pole class and Feuilly about filming us doing our routine.”

“Great.” She waves him off, and Grantaire only lingers a few moments to watch her careful work before he leaves.

*

The next day, Grantaire is in practice gear at home, working at the barre he installed in his walk-in closet. Living in a two-bedroom apartment with three other people means it's much nicer than anything he could have afforded with only one other roommate, and his little home practice room is his favorite thing. Last year, living with Jehan, he had to use the couch as a barre and sometimes Jehan would unexpectedly sit on it with a cup of tea and a curious expression and it threw him off every time, even when Jehan was just doing homework and not really watching him. This year, he just leaves the closet door open and has barely enough space to extend his legs and arms as far as he needs to, but it's better.

Normally, no one interrupts him while his door is closed unless it's important. It's one of the few rules in their household, reciprocal mostly out of a sense of fairness, since they're all much less likely to walk in on him having sex, but it's good for his practice, which is why it's a surprise when there's a knock on his door a few minutes after he hears all three of them slam through the door, laughing about something.

“Come in,” he says, dropping his leg and stretching some of the strain out of it, and a second later Bossuet pokes his head around the doorway and then comes in properly when Grantaire smiles at him. “To what do I owe the honor, on date night of all nights?”

“It isn't date night, it is still afternoon, Musichetta was very clear that date nights can't start before six PM or she'll never get anything done.” Bossuet brandishes a USB drive. “I have been entrusted with this by Combeferre, and I didn't even lose it, so the universe must want you to have it.”

“Score and demo audio files for the opera, I bet. Toss it.”

Bossuet does, with the exasperated look that says he knows exactly how likely it is that he will throw it straight, and Grantaire snags it even though it goes almost two feet wide of where Bossuet was aiming. They do pretty well that way. “You're helping with the opera, then? He asked Joly and me if we thought you would do it.”

“I'm doing it, or I think I am. As long as I don't have to teach any college students how to dance from scratch.”

“That sucks, I was thinking you should teach Joly and me a tapdance routine.”

Grantaire stares at him. “For the opera?”

“No, in general, some things are best expressed through awesome Gene Kelly moves.”

“Right, obviously.”

Joly chooses that moment to poke his head around the door. “Did he remember the thumb drive? Combeferre said I should ask if he did.”

Grantaire brandishes it. “He was an awesome messenger, all the speed and efficiency of Hermes and all the reliability of the postman, and has anyone considered that winged shoes should definitely be part of the mail delivery uniform?”

“That would be badass,” says Joly. “He hasn't showed us the full score yet, he keeps muttering about editing. So you should tell us how awesome our duet is when you get there. And then you should convince Combeferre to give us a tapdance break.”

“I will definitely take that under advisement.”

“He picked that up from Musichetta, we are never going to get to tapdance,” says Bossuet sadly.

“Our Fred Astaire dreams are doomed to fail,” Joly agrees, and then grins at Grantaire in the let's-get-up-to-some-shenanigans way that has resulted, at various times over the last four years, in several adventures on fire escapes, one instance of getting stranded on a roof, one vow to never touch horses again, and Joly and Bossuet's successful seduction of Musichetta. “Unless you want to teach us some independent of the opera.”

“We'll see.”

Musichetta appears, prodding Joly into the room as she goes. “Are we interrogating Grantaire about the opera and why he gets to read the full score before I do even though I'm playing the lead?”

“Are you? That's awesome. I know pretty much zero things about the show except that Enjolras is the villain and I am doing some choreography and probably dancing with Floréal since I sweet-talked the office into giving us credit today.”

“Your sweet-talk is legendary,” she says. “And I'm really happy that you get to do this with us, we all miss you in Theory Six. Sure you can't audit?”

“I've got Modern at least one time a week during your class, so I'm afraid you have to do without my sparkling company until we start proper opera rehearsals. Well, not the three of you, I live with you, but you know what I mean.”

“We do indeed.” She slings an arm around Joly's neck and beckons Bossuet over so she can lean against his side. “Are you joining us for date night tonight? We're having Weird Pancake Topping Night.”

“Oh man, that is the best night, I don't think I can even give you lectures about how you shouldn't invite extra wheels along on your dates in the face of the possibility of putting curry sauce on my pancakes.”

“I brought relish, and a lot of duck sauce from the Chinese buffet,” says Bossuet. “And you aren't our extra wheel, on date nights you are our D'Artagnan, which is much more badass.”

“But date night doesn't start for another hour and a half, because I have a psych paper to write,” Joly says firmly. “And Grantaire was still practicing.”

“I was,” says Grantaire, gesturing down at his clothes. “So I'll see you all in a couple hours and we'll negotiate about the tapdance routine, and I will break into my special supply of sriracha sauce for Pancake Night. Good?”

“Good,” says Musichetta, and blows him a kiss before she shepherds her boyfriends out of his room, leaving him to pocket the USB drive and go back into his closet to return to his routine.

*

Grantaire gets around to reading through the score sometime after midnight and way too many pancakes, a first quick skim. He's heard a few of Combeferre's compositions before and liked them, but he shocks himself with how impressed he is at the opera, beyond the very fact that it's an opera at all. It turns out, after all his lack of clarity, to be a sequel of sorts to _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , where Titania and her attendants start a rebellion against Oberon, who Grantaire has to admit is kind of a dick in the original Shakespeare and thus most adaptations thereof, and where Puck plays double agent and remains ambiguous throughout.

It's fucking fascinating and in a couple years it's a role that ballet dancers are going to be fighting their way into the opera world to play, and Grantaire has a very quiet panic over the fact that he's apparently going to be _debuting_ it.

He texts Floréal, because the other three are asleep in the other room and he could probably text anyone else from the theory group and find them awake, but they're all more apt to be comforting, and if he starts feeling like he needs comfort for this he's _really_ going to panic. _Do you think Le Gros is just giving me rope to hang myself with on this whole choreography deal?_ he texts.

She doesn't text back for fifteen minutes, while he goes through one of Enjolras's arias with a fine-toothed comb, seeing the spots where a dance could fit in. _If you ever interrupt me during sex again I am going to break your ankles, but no, I don't think he is. He's more the direct stabbing kind. Now go the fuck to bed._

Floréal always knows the most comforting thing to say.

*

Late September is one of Grantaire's favorite times of year, the way it fluctuates between warm and cool, and he spends as much time as he can outside before the autumn gets too cold and he bundles himself up in all his winter layers.

A few days after he reads the score, he's getting some sun, half-asleep with his backpack propping his head up, when someone clears his throat above him. Someone, when Grantaire squints into the sun, proves to be Combeferre, flanked by Enjolras and Courfeyrac. “Come into my office,” he says, because Combeferre wouldn't interrupt a potential nap for nothing.

Sure enough, Combeferre sits down cross-legged on the ground next to his head, Courfeyrac almost in sync, and Enjolras sits down a reluctant second later, a little farther away from Grantaire than the other two. Enjolras knows just how to flatter a person.

“I got your acknowledgment that you got my score, but I thought I would ask if you've had the chance to look it over yet,” says Combeferre almost immediately, because he's a believer in getting down to business.

“I have, I just wanted to go over a few spots in more detail before I gave you anything much. But, yeah, I'm in. Le Gros is getting me credit. And Floréal, so she's on tap too, for the seducing-over-into-the-rebellion dance. Unless you've changed your mind about me choreographing? Because you could get Madame for next semester, she's got more experience and you'd probably get her Intermediate Ballet doing it as their final and thus a whole chorus instead of two dancers.”

“I'd rather have two dancers and have you do the choreography, if possible. I want this to be a student-run production.”

“Unless the commitment is too much for you, I can see where it would be,” says Enjolras, and the worst thing is that he isn't even needling Grantaire, he's just completely honest about his belief that Grantaire doesn't have the staying power to choreograph several featured dances in an opera.

Which, well. Replace “staying power” with “skill” and Grantaire sort of shares that belief, but he's working on the general principle that if he ignores that it will go away. “I said I'm in, and I'm getting credit, I just wanted to make sure Combeferre knew he could get out, thanks. What, not looking forward to our duets?”

He isn't looking at Enjolras but he knows the exact sour face he makes at that. “I don't know if they count as duets.”

“I count them as duets,” says Combeferre, which shuts any contradictions down even though he's as mild as ever. Grantaire is pretty sure Combeferre is the most terrifying person he's ever met, he's just quiet about it. “Any initial thoughts, Grantaire? I can't say I know much about dance, but I probably know enough to follow any broad strokes you give me.”

Grantaire sits up, because it feels more like a professional conversation that way, and rests his hands on his knees so he doesn't gesticulate too much. If he happens to settle himself at an angle where he can only see Enjolras out of the corner of his eye, that's his own business. “So, okay, you seem to be using different musical styles for the formal court, with Oberon and everyone pretending to be loyal, and with the rebel group, and a little bit for Bottom, but I don't think Puck hangs around him too much. But anyway, if Puck is playing double agent, doing both styles of music, he needs two styles of dance, right? Traditional ballet for Oberon and probably modern for Titania, I'm a little less sure about that but it should be something where the audience can see a transition.”

Combeferre is nodding along before Grantaire has even finished half of his speech. “Yes, yes, exactly. Though finding the ambiguity in the ending could be hard.”

“Does it need to be ambiguous? I mean, did you want it to be? Because picking a side in the end is going to turn out to be as easy as switching postures, and not everyone is going to get it, but some people will. Or maybe the ambiguity could be doing the wrong style of dancing to the music it ends on, that was kind of sketchy.”

“I'm still working that out. Puck's true allegiance was always difficult. I'm pretty sure it's with Oberon, but maybe I want him to be convinced throughout the action, like he convinces his dance partner, since you said Floréal can do it.”

“Yeah, that can be a mix of styles, I figure. Floréal and I both know how to turn on a hair.”

“I'll look forward to seeing how it turns out,” says Courfeyrac. “I've been hearing all the music forever, but Combeferre isn't impressed with my dancing skills.”

“Your dancing skills include the Charleston and disco,” says Enjolras, and he sounds a lot less annoyed than he did before, so Grantaire risks turning until he can meet his eyes if he needs to.

“It's true, I can do a badass Charleston. That's Cosette's fault, though. She decided we should all learn over the summer.”

Grantaire grins at Courfeyrac. “You three should get together with Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta for the least heteronormative double date in history.” Courfeyrac grins back but doesn't comment, and Grantaire turns back to Combeferre. “You've got the show mostly cast? I don't think I'll have to teach many people dance steps based on what you've got, but just in case.”

“Enjolras may have to dance with you since you can't exactly sing with him, but nothing too difficult.” Combeferre smiles at Enjolras, who is sitting stiff and disapproving again. “I promise.” He looks back at Grantaire. “But for the most part, it really is an opera and not a musical theater production, so singing and dancing at the same time isn't necessary.”

“Is Éponine in it?” He doesn't spend much time with Éponine away from the Theory group, and when they spent time together it was mostly in mutual and silent acknowledgment of their hopeless crushes. Things are a little weirder with them now that they both forced themselves over it, but he still likes her enough to ask.

Combeferre hesitates, which is rare enough that it makes Grantaire pay extra attention. “That's under discussion,” he finally says. “I wrote the role of the boy Oberon and Titania have been fighting over so he could be played either by an alto or a mezzo doing a pants role in Mozart's tradition, or by a countertenor. Jehan would rather not have a featured role, he's focusing more on his instruments and his own compositions, and I'd love for Éponine to do it, but she's leery of it. Opera isn't usually her genre.”

“I'll talk her into it, no way I can survive doing an opera without Éponine.” And she might like knowing there's someone else around who's a little reluctant because he's not sure how well he'll do.

“I would appreciate that.” There's something in Combeferre's tone that Grantaire will have to think over later, and Courfeyrac is responding too. Enjolras either doesn't notice or has a really good poker face, and it's anyone's guess which. “And I appreciate you helping. We were just heading back to our apartment, so we'll leave you to your nap.”

“Much appreciated,” says Grantaire, waving around at all three of them. “I'll talk to you when I have some more concrete ideas about things, and we can start rehearsing and figuring them out. And you let me know if any music needs to be changed, so I don't have steps for something that no longer exists.”

Combeferre is the first to stand, and the other two are only a beat behind him. “Thank you again, Grantaire. Let me know when you've made progress, I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

“And let me know if you need me to practice,” Enjolras adds, somewhere on the verge of friendly. Grantaire will take it.

“Absolutely.” He makes a shooing motion. “You guys go, I'm sure I'll talk to you soon.”

They wander away, and Grantaire moves to recline again before they're quite out of sight, closing his eyes and humming a snatch of one of Combeferre's tunes under his breath.

*

Grantaire does most of his dancing for himself in the middle of the night.

During the day, he does his practice with all the discipline he can muster (more than his parents or his first five dance teachers ever thought he could and more than most of his friends realize), works on his routines and his muscle strengthening exercises, practices going _en pointe_ because Le Gros makes all his advanced ballet students do it regardless of gender. At night, he lets himself think or stop thinking as he needs it, makes up steps, puts together fragments from previous routines that have been stuck in his head like a catchy line of music. Jehan, watching once during one of their mutual insomniac periods, told him it was like watching him do the physical version of dreaming, but Jehan is prone to saying things like that.

Mostly he does it without music, but tonight, he puts Combeferre's audio files on his mp3 player and puts in his headphones and listens through the overture, through the first few numbers, sketches out steps in his mind while he straps on his pointe shoes in case he needs them.

When he's ready, it's not one of his numbers—he thinks it's a conversation between Titania and her attendants, before Puck pretends to join the rebellion, but that doesn't really matter. For now, he's just getting a feel for the music.

Grantaire raises his arms, goes to third position, and starts dancing, Combeferre's music filling his ears.

**October**

“So, I hear you're reluctant to join Combeferre's attempt at revitalizing opera.”

Éponine, headphones on, guitar in her lap, head tipped back against the brick of the building she's leaning against and eyes closed, gives him the finger, which proves his long-held theory that most of the time the headphones are on so she's got plausible deniability.

“It's a noble cause,” he persists, sitting down next to her and considering strumming her guitar for emphasis before deciding that's likely to end in him getting a hand cut off.

“Are you here on a mission from him or something?”

“He would never make someone else do his dirty work for him.” Probably true. “I pretty much just want your company during rehearsals. And also I've been informed by Jehan himself that he has no interest in playing the role, which pretty much leaves you.”

“You know, there are music majors and singers at this college who aren't part of the Theory crew.” Éponine finally opens her eyes and slides her headphones off, which Grantaire feels unreasonably smug about. Éponine doesn't decide a lot of people are worthy of her attention. “Opera isn't really my vocal style, except when Lamarque makes me.”

“Hey, Lamarque wouldn't make you if he didn't think you could,” says Grantaire, because the impression he gets is that Lamarque is like the more overtly terrifying version of Le Gros. “If you don't want to, I won't harass you about it or anything, but I'm kind of worried I won't see you at all this year otherwise.”

Her silence is long enough that he thinks she's maybe trying to figure out how to not say that she wants to but she's worried she can't for some reason. It's a kind of silence he knows all too well. “I'll consider it,” she finally says. “I still think there are better options. What's-her-name, the junior, you know, the one Musichetta kind of adopted for a while last year?”

“You're cooler. Plus, she couldn't use it as her senior recital and you definitely can.”

“I've already got plans for my senior recital, Lamarque was talking about booking me in for one of the acoustic nights, kind of a coffeehouse thing, let me do some blues, some of my own songs, maybe an art song or two if he thinks the audience is up for it.”

“That sounds awesome, I will definitely come and cheer you on.” He elbows her gently in the side. “I think Combeferre really wants you to do it. And this opera is his baby. If he trusts you with it maybe you should trust yourself with it.”

“Ugh.” She tips her head back again. “I fucking hate all of you.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I'll ask him to see the score. I've sung Combeferre's music before, for university choir, he expects really weird things of his singers sometimes. Instrumentalists always do. I mean, he sings, but mostly it's the piano and the composing, it has an impact.”

“The ways of you musicians are foreign to me,” Grantaire declares and taps out a rhythm on his knees while she scowls, still not impressed with his ability to convince her to join operas. “I'll treat you to dinner.”

Éponine opens her eyes again and raises her eyebrows at him. “Yes you will. Possibly the whole cast will at some point, if I do this. It's not like my senior year is busy or anything, working and living with my brother and getting a degree.”

“I'll let Combeferre convince you the rest of the way, I just figured I owed you dinner for getting you to consider it.” Grantaire shoves himself to his feet and offers her a hand, which she ignores in favor of packing her guitar into its case and getting up on her own.

“I'm surprised you let yourself get talked into it,” she says, starting to walk and making him catch up to her, her guitar case between them. “Considering the whole Enjolras of it all.”

Grantaire shrugs. “I'm crossing that bridge when I come to it.”

Éponine is silent for a minute, considering that. “I'll buy the drinks,” she finally says, and starts walking a little faster.

*

_Plié, relevé_ , a hint at a jump that won't happen until the music grows more sure of itself.

Grantaire's favorite part of the opera is the aria that's really a duet, Oberon telling Puck that he knows of his wife's rebellion and asking his loyal servant to play double agent, Puck proving he can play the part but orbiting around Oberon (and if that hits a little too close to home, to a bad time before Floréal threatened to kick his ass and bought them tickets to New York for winter break, Grantaire just concentrates a little more on his turnout, on the precise angle of his arms).

It's in five, a rocking, circular kind of piece that teeters on the edge of a waltz, and Grantaire keeps his dancing in precise, mathematical circles following an imaginary Enjolras around the stage, always in orbit, never closer or farther than five feet. He imagines a stage, keeps his jumps and taller steps to where he would be behind Enjolras, or at least to his side, follows the lyrics or at least the sketch of them, since the audio is piano-only, slips into modern in a few places, showy stretches and turns.

He spirals in a little closer as the dynamic and the pitch both climb, as the intensity ups, and he thinks it's a risk, he thinks Enjolras will want to move more at this part, as he vows his revenge and his inevitable victory, and it will be easy to get tangled up, but Grantaire keeps pirouetting in tighter and tighter circles and ends the last chord on his knees, in front of the Enjolras he's been imagining.

It isn't there yet, but it's the first glimmer he's had of something that he knows could work. Grantaire brings himself to his feet, goes back to his original position, and starts the track again.

*

“Theory is having dinner at six thirty at the Italian place,” Joly says, poking his head around Grantaire's open door. “Everyone wants you to come.”

“Oh man, a meeting I can actually make it to? I haven't seen everyone all in one place since our after-finals party last year. We really need to work on that, I refuse to be that friend group that drifts apart during senior year. Or, well, that sad person who loses his friend group.”

“The opera should help with that.”

Grantaire releases the stretch he was doing and takes a few deep breaths. Le Gros has him _en pointe_ all the fucking time and he's thinking about it for opera and it's hell on the hamstrings, not to mention the ankles. “It should, but it isn't rehearsing yet. Yeah, I'll come to dinner.”

Joly comes and sits cross-legged in front of him, offering his hands and bracing himself so Grantaire can use him as leverage for his next stretch. Joly knows his routine by now. “You don't feel abandoned, do you? We need to up our couch-cuddling regime if you are. Bossuet and Bahorel pine after you in class, it's very sad. There's no one to play Morse tic-tac-toe with anymore. I mean, other than the two of them, but it's better with three.”

“You could learn.”

“It is a blood sport, I would rather play football, and you are straining your back too much, ease up.”

Grantaire resettles his hips until his spine pulls less and holds for a few more seconds before releasing. “I don't feel abandoned. Combeferre asked me to be in his opera, I live with the three most affectionate people in the world, I had dinner with Éponine the other night and went out with Bahorel last weekend, and I have my dance friends. It's just weird, not all being in each other's pockets. I'll be glad when rehearsals pick up.”

“Sounds like you're doing it pretty constantly already. Can you tell Combeferre to show me and Bossuet our duet? I want to hear it.”

“I think he's rewriting it, so looking at what I've got now won't do you much good. If he does it right, no one but you two is ever going to be able to perform that duet the way it's supposed to be performed, so you've got some job security there.”

Joly nods and offers a shoulder for Grantaire to brace against as he twists. “As it should be. Do you need an ice pack? You've been dancing constantly.”

“After dinner, maybe. What time is it now?”

“We have to leave in about half an hour to get there. Musichetta's driving.”

Grantaire flops onto his back, done stretching out the kinks. “Okay. I'll meet you at the door.”

Joly pats his leg and leaves without a word, because Joly is an angel who knows when Grantaire just needs to contemplate his life choices and wonder why his five-year-old self didn't watch Bill Nye instead of the Nutcracker.

In the end, he manages to get off the floor and into outside clothes instead of dancing clothes, which he's been wearing fairly constantly. When he gets out to the hallway, Musichetta is already there, wrapping up in a jacket and scarf because even in her fourth year she can't get used to the fall chill (much less the winter), and she throws an arm around him when he gets in range, leaning on him quietly until Joly and Bossuet emerge from the other bedroom, arguing happily about whether a superhero opera would be better or worse than a superhero Broadway musical.

“The trials and tribulations of most superheroes and their unfortunate Muggle friends and love interests are probably more operatic than anything else,” he says, and Musichetta laughs into his shoulder and puts her other arm through Joly's offered one, prodding Grantaire out the door so he's leading them like the clumsiest human centipede known to man.

The debate lasts through the whole car ride, including a tangent about whether Batman could be a feasible opera since Batman is definitely a bass and Bruce Wayne is definitely a tenor and very few people could play both, and another about superhero ballets, given all the parkour superheroes do. Grantaire joins in, settling back to earth after too much concentration on Combeferre's opera, and judging by Musichetta's smile in the rearview mirror, she gets that.

Almost everyone else is there when they get there—Jehan is running late and Bahorel is apparently picking him up from work, but the rest of them are spilled over three tables pushed together in the middle of the room, which the wait staff seems tolerant of. They probably get college students acting worse all the time, and it's not like they're prone to reenacting “La Vie Bohème” and dancing on tables ( _La Bohème_ is a different matter entirely, but Grantaire doesn't know the words to that one).

Grantaire's party is greeted with shouts and everyone immediately folds them into the conversation while they try to finish their own, a mess of Gwen Stacy's dramatic death aria overlapping with a fierce debate on university spending on sports nation-wide for a minute before it sorts itself into everyone catching up on their days.

He ends up next to Joly, which unfortunately means that he also ends up next to Enjolras, who's sitting at the far end of one of the tables because he's left-handed and likes his elbow space.

“We should meet up sometime soon so I can start seeing what kind of blocking I'm going to need to work around for our numbers together,” he says quietly when Joly's attention is captured by Feuilly.

Enjolras looks kind of startled, and Grantaire isn't sure why that is. “Of course. We can schedule a time. I have a paper due soon, so maybe a week or two, but I'll try to make time. We can invite Combeferre, if you like, so he can see what you have so far.”

“I have no idea if anything will work with what you've got, so we should probably meet up first. I figured I would start with the numbers that require me being involved with other people, the ones where it's mostly me I can do a little later.”

“You know best.”

Grantaire bites his tongue on any of his automatic answers, which mostly are wanting to needle Enjolras or asking why Enjolras seems to have zero faith in Grantaire's ability to choreograph the show. He could at least save his lack of faith for Combeferre. Though really, who is Grantaire kidding, Enjolras definitely tried to talk Combeferre out of using Grantaire. “Let me know when your paper is done, then, and we can see how things go. The dance department has practice rooms big enough that we won't trip over anything, I can block out some time in one, do it all formally, if it's one of the times I'm not usually in there.”

“Great.”

Enjolras still doesn't sound enthused, but Grantaire leaves it alone, because Enjolras has never once been enthused about anything to do with Grantaire and at this point it's just tiring. Instead, he catches the nearest hook of conversation that sounds interesting and throws himself into Musichetta and Bossuet's conversation, leaning back so Joly can keep talking to Feuilly without interruption.

Jehan and Bahorel turn up about the same time the waitress braves their table, and all the conversation stops in favor of people throwing out suggestions of appetizers and debates over whether anyone should be expected to share. The waitress looks like she wants to strangle them by the time she leaves, and Grantaire makes a note to leave a huge tip at the end of the meal.

It's nice, being back with the Theory group. Any worries Grantaire had about feeling left out, not taking the same class as them, rapidly disappear. They seem to want to talk about anything but their class. Combeferre and Jehan are debating the possibilities of various composing fellowships, Bahorel tells them all how Joy is doing (which is awesome, apparently she's headlining a concert in Kiev, and Grantaire really needs to send her a text to say she's great), and it's all an easy, usual rhythm, for the most part.

Sitting next to Enjolras is odd, though, if only because Grantaire has never quite realized before exactly how quiet he is when all their friends are together. He laughs, and smiles, and gets in a short debate with Cosette over the feasibility of an opera singer winning _American Idol_ , but for the most part he just sits there watching everyone intensely, and Grantaire finds himself doing the same instead of joining in the conversations like he usually would.

Dessert arrives before Combeferre turns to Grantaire from the other end of the table. “How's the choreography going?”

“I'm getting some good ideas,” he says. “Enjolras and I were thinking about meeting up, figuring out the big duet, I've been working on that the most. And I'll hopefully meet up with Floréal about the act two opener soon.”

“Any more thoughts on the ending?”

“It's your opera, I am making your vision happen, and does it really matter if Puck picks a side? The opera isn't really about him.”

Combeferre frowns. “The ambiguity could be good, but I'm not sure. If there was a sequel, if this were a movie, that would make more sense, but this opera stands alone.”

“If you are going to talk shop,” Éponine says from somewhere between them, “sit next to each other, the rest of us are having other conversations.”

“We can stop if you'd rather,” Combeferre says, turning to her instantly, frown going from thoughtful to concerned in half a second.

She raises her eyebrows at him. “I don't care, I just had enough table manners taught to me to know that you should try and keep your conversations to people you're sitting with.”

Grantaire lifts his plate of chocolate torte and exchanges eyebrow raises with Feuilly, who immediately cedes his place next to Combeferre and goes to take Grantaire's instead. Grantaire squeezes Éponine's shoulder as he passes her, but she doesn't respond, just makes a point of turning back to Jehan and their conversation about the new bar across town, which is normally a conversation he would be interested in.

“Tell me your thoughts about the ending,” he says as soon as he sits down. “Puck and Oberon get exiled, or Oberon gets exiled and Puck is told to go with him, and I know you made that ambiguous on purpose, that maybe Titania isn't even sure what side Puck is on, much less Oberon or Puck himself, since they aren't the ones saying it.”

“What do you think?”

“I think he's on Oberon's, not morally so much but for the person. That's the impression I get, anyway.” He doesn't like pretending that. It hits too close to home, but maybe that's what will make him good at it. “So the ambiguity makes sense. He gets he was horrible to Titania and he should be better, but he's still loyal.”

“Okay.” Combeferre nods, tapping his fork absently against his plate, a little noise that's lost under the rest of the table making conversation about other things. “That's not quite how I wrote it originally—I should let you see the aria I had to cut from before I made Puck a dancer, and some of the other pieces that had him in them, they might be useful for you. But I think it could work. It makes more sense, if I'm taking his voice away, I think.”

“Show me your arias. Like I keep telling you this is definitely your opera, I don't want to make any character choices without your say-so.”

“I'm not going to micromanage,” says Combeferre, and starts asking questions about some of the smaller dance interludes and whether he'll be able to get Bahorel doing a few steps.

It doesn't take too long for the night to break up, and Grantaire excuses himself as soon as Joly starts yawning, catching one arm right as Musichetta catches the other and pulling him to his feet, because about three yawns in Joly becomes impossible to move.

When they get to the car, Musichetta and Bossuet exchange a few glances and come to a decision that involves Joly loaded in the front seat next to Bossuet driving, and Musichetta and Grantaire in the back, Musichetta buckling herself into the much-hated middle seat and curling companionably around Grantaire.

They're quiet, quieter than usual, and Grantaire tips his head against Musichetta's shoulder, waits for her to say whatever it is that she needs to say. “Tell me it's going to be okay, that it's not going to get bad,” she finally whispers, giving him the illusion of privacy even though her boyfriends are in the front seat. “Tell me it's going to be okay and I will never mention it again.”

Grantaire considers Enjolras's expression when he tried to talk to him earlier, his obvious belief that Grantaire can't or won't commit to this, and weighs it against how much he enjoyed talking to Combeferre about motivation, about styles of dance, about how much he's enjoying his constant practice. “It's going to be okay,” he says, and he even believes it.

*

Pirouette, pirouette, pause, all on _demi-pointe_. A wait for three measures in perfect fourth position and then another hesitant turn, on flat feet. Grantaire stops, backs up in the track to the same place, and moves over a few feet to try the other part, the interlocking puzzle piece, pirouette, pirouette, a series of turns in less and less proper form and finally a pause, where Floréal will execute her turn.

It feels a little too easy, spinning her over to the side of the rebellion, and it won't be the whole dance, anywhere close to it, but it's the first change from classic ballet, and the turns don't feel quite significant enough. Grantaire pauses, moves the track back.

Step, step, a hold for a spin, two more steps twice as fast and a quicker spin, and it still feels wrong, and Grantaire pauses, breaks pose to think, and when he turns to the door, Enjolras is standing there watching him. Grantaire doesn't startle, but he does blink a few times, to make sure he isn't seeing things. “To what do I owe the honor?” he says when Enjolras doesn't say anything, and bites his tongue before he can ask how long Enjolras has been there.

“Joly says you often practice at this time, I thought I would stop by and see how things were going.”

“Poorly, as you can see.” Grantaire sketches a little circle on the floor with his toes. “I'm working on one of my other dances, not the big one with you. The one with Floréal.”

“Ah.” Enjolras is frowning, not like he's angry but like he's thinking about something, and then he shakes his head. “I should have asked before I came. I don't want to interrupt if you're thinking about another dance. We'll schedule a time. Combeferre just told me to take a break from writing my paper and I thought—”

Old instinct says to drop the dance, go back to the one that he's a little more sure of, show off for Enjolras, but Grantaire is almost, almost on the edge of something, and he doesn't want to lose that. “You're welcome to stay and watch for a while if you want, as long as you shut the door behind you, but yeah, I'm working on this one right now.”

“Thank you, but I don't want to be a distraction. Good luck with this dance.”

Grantaire nods, and watches the door until Enjolras leaves with no more acknowledgment than a nod in return.

When he's alone again, he starts the track from the beginning, dances his part, and then Floréal's, and then his again, different every time, waiting for it to click.

*

Floréal walks him back from pole class towards the end of the month, making the excuse that Wall Street has a test the next morning so she's spending a rare night in her actual dorm, and he's on her way.

“When do I get to start dancing your beautiful choreography?” she asks about halfway there. “Because Le Gros is making noises about the halfway point in the semester and my credit.”

“Your big number is not easy, let me tell you. I'm supposed to seduce you over to the world of modern dance in about five and a half minutes of music, and I'm still struggling with a lot of the steps.”

“So bring me in, see what we can do together. Improvisation works until we can get it under us.” She raises her arms, the exact angle for first position, and dips a clumsy _demi-plié_. He respects that, his thighs hurt like fuck after pole class and he probably couldn't do it. “We're fairies, right? Lots of time in the air, lots of _ballon_ , I bet we can manage it.”

“Okay.” He walks a few steps, thinks that over. “I kept going for turns, but maybe that's a little too easy, I kept thinking that. I can manage time in the air.”

“Keep me off the ground as much as possible, I mean it. You can throw me when we get to the modern section, do some of those acrobatics we're so good at.”

“I need to talk to Combeferre about his ideas for set design. I hope there are levels, we can climb all over the stage like a jungle gym if you want.”

Floréal grins, pleased and smug. “This is why I should have been in on this from the beginning, my ideas are the best ideas.”

“Right, right, you're always right and I should merely do whatever you say.” Grantaire puts his arm around her shoulders, and she reciprocates with one around his waist. “After Modern tomorrow? We'll meet up, figure out the start of a _pas_ , and you can see what I've got for elsewhere as well, tell me what you think.”

“Only if you promise we'll do fifteen at the barre first, been a while since we did ballet together, we can get back in rhythm.”

“Pinky promise, we'll be good and work on our technique first.”

“Great. Now tell me how awesome I am at pole so I can forget how much my back hurts.”

Grantaire laughs and comes up with increasingly flowery compliments for the rest of their walk.

**November**

“Right.” Grantaire moves his arms into an absent stretch, more for something to do with his body than because he isn't warmed up. He's been in the practice room for half an hour, waiting for Enjolras to show up exactly when Grantaire asked him to, and Enjolras didn't disappoint. He even did Grantaire the honor of showing up two minutes early. “So, I think we need to start with you pacing out some kind of blocking for me on our big number. Start from the recitative and just go through, along with the audio. No need to sing, I just want to see where you're moving and how.”

Enjolras stretches his neck out, face tense with a thoughtful frown. “Any requests or guidance?”

“Try and stay a body-length away from the walls, if you can. I'm pretending it's the stage and I'm hoping to do circles around you, so don't make me fall off or stumble into the wings or the backdrop.”

“It's smaller than the stage in here.”

“We'll work that out when we need to, and I'm assuming Combeferre has some set design in mind.”

“He's starting to.” Enjolras smiles, the same one he always does when he's talking about one of his friends, and it's just as much of a relief as ever to see him relax like that, to see how much he really does love all of them, even if “them” doesn't include Grantaire except in the most general sense. “I don't think he realized just how much would go into directing the show as opposed to merely composing it. Courfeyrac and I are helping him all we can, and I think he wants to talk to Feuilly about set design, but it's overwhelming.”

“I'll talk to him about it too, Floréal and I had some ideas, and they might be helpful for everyone else too.”

For a second, he thinks that's going to earn him a scowl for overstepping, but then Enjolras smiles. “He'd be glad for your input, since your part is much more physical than the rest of ours. Should we get started?”

Enjolras paces to the middle of the room, which Grantaire supposes is as good a cue as any. He starts the music, on the tinny speakers he stole from Bossuet. Enjolras settles his shoulders the same way Grantaire does before a dance and sings his recitative very quietly, not much movement to begin, a few aborted moves before bringing himself back to center.

When the aria starts in properly, he moves a little more, pacing to one side and then the other, stopping to emphasize a point, turning to one side or another to address something directly to an imaginary Grantaire. As the song goes on, Enjolras's movements dovetail pretty well with Grantaire's theories of them, his use of the room going wider, his steps quicker.

Grantaire stops the music after Enjolras's last note, where he plants himself close enough to one wall that he must be planning to storm out as soon as he finishes, which could work if Grantaire adapts a few things. He was expecting to end at center.

“Did that seem workable to you?” Enjolras asks, dropping the character immediately.

Grantaire stands up straight instead of leaning on the wall and takes his shoes off in response. He always imagines Puck (and most of the fairies, really) as barefoot, so he's been practicing that way, although judging by Enjolras's raised eyebrow maybe he shouldn't have been. “Do it again. Try and keep as close to that as you can, we'll see how it goes.”

Enjolras goes back to his mark, as exact as if there's been tape there, and Grantaire starts the recording again, sliding into place sitting cross-legged towards the edge of the “stage,” like he's just sitting there, his attention caught when Enjolras says his name in the recitative. He stands as Enjolras continues, draws in closer, stops a few feet away, waits to be beckoned in, only ducks in close for a beat before moving away again, on the other side, as the aria begins.

It begins with Oberon seething over his wife's betrayal, wanting revenge. Grantaire keeps his steps simple for that, making a wide circle around Enjolras, _allegro_ but not distracting. Whenever Enjolras sings the word “Puck” he does an _entrechat-quatre_ , acknowledging, showing off a little, and when Oberon's plan starts coming into being he lets his jumps go wider even as his circle tightens, following Enjolras as he moves around the room but never on a path to touch him. He keeps moving even when he's not totally sure of what steps he wants to use, falls to flat feet and modern style a few times, when the lyrics mention him playing double agent, tries to pause and wait in something close to _écarté_ during the parts where he remembers Enjolras turning directly to him instead of the audience and usually manages to catch his gesture and make eye contact.

The end is his favorite part, when Oberon is triumphant, sure of his plan's success, and Grantaire falls into a rapid, dizzying series of _deboulé en manège_ making his circles into a tighter and tighter spiral, following Enjolras towards the edge of the stage as the music climbs, getting close enough that he'll have to watch out for Enjolras's gestures, and collapses to his knees in front of Enjolras on the last chord, barring his way offstage.

“I'll have to end on your other side,” he says when he gets his breath back.

Enjolras backs off a few steps, but for once it doesn't seem like it's just to get out of Grantaire's space, since a few seconds later he's sitting down, presumably so they can exchange thoughts without Grantaire having to get up, which he appreciates. “I don't know. I like that, actually, you making me go around you. Puck may be Oberon's servant, but no matter how loyal Puck is I think he would want at least a little acknowledgment after agreeing to this.”

“It's the end of a scene, it will go dark right after that, or the curtain will draw, or something, so … I think it all goes into the end again, right? If he's just left waiting, kneeling there, people are going to more likely believe him really joining the other side, but if he gets some praise ...”

“That makes sense. Hand on your head?”

“Could work. How was the rest of it for you?”

Enjolras leans back on his hands, frowning. “It looks great from where I'm standing, but I think it needs to be more of a duet. It was one originally, and Combeferre still talks about it as one. Talks about pretty much all our interactions as a duet, actually.”

“I don't know how much more we can do, other than really making sure we know when we're supposed to be looking at each other.”

“You weren't touching me at all. You can't sing, but I can try to dance, or at least give you something stationary to push off.”

Grantaire tips his head back, considering. His heart isn't slamming against his ribcage anymore and he's glad, because if his adrenaline stays too high around Enjolras he's going to get confused and that's not going to end well for anyone. “That wasn't how I was conceptualizing it, but it could work. I mean, I'm not going to try to teach you ballet form, that way leads to disaster, but if we manage our little corner of space-time well, I can probably use you to turn. It's a little ballroom, but you've got the height to look like you're partnering me.”

“If you tell me what to do, I'll try. I did musicals in high school, I've at least got some rhythm.”

Grantaire sits upright. “Tell me you have video. Please tell me you have video, because all I want in the world right now is to see you doing some Shark-and-Jet snapping and occasional jazz hands.”

It takes a second to remember that he isn't talking to Joly or Bossuet and that Enjolras is as likely to snap at him to leave it as he is to announce that jazz hands should be a part of their everyday lives. To his surprise, though, Enjolras laughs. “I don't, and if I did I wouldn't tell you where to find it. Suffice to say I may not be a dancer but I can at least follow directions.”

“That should come in handy later too, during the shorter bits where we have a lot to get through, or there are other characters around so Oberon can't talk about his evil plans. You can spin me or something, we can figure out some way to do it that's a signal.”

“Lamarque is always telling me I'm not physical enough with my singing, he'll approve.” Enjolras glances over at the mirrored wall. They always freak out the non-dance majors. Or get them thinking kinky thoughts. Grantaire would bet more on the freaking out for Enjolras. “I liked the circles, though,” he says when he looks back. “Like physics, sort of orbiting.”

Grantaire points at him. “Yes, exactly, I am really glad you got that because I am proud as fuck of it and I worried it would only work from overhead, which, great for the people in the cheap seats, I guess?”

“I could definitely tell, and I think they'll be able to in the audience as well, I think it will really work.”

“Glad to hear it.” Grantaire groans and levers himself to his feet, offering Enjolras a hand when he's upright. “Want to go again?”

Enjolras, to his surprise, takes his offered hand and pulls himself easily to his feet. “Let's do it.”

*

“Thank you for coming, everyone.”

Combeferre is the most self-possessed person under the age of forty that Grantaire has ever seen, and Grantaire straightens in his seat in response to the way Combeferre shuffles his papers, standing easily without shifting his weight or fidgeting too much. Which Grantaire definitely would be, with half the music faculty scrutinizing his every move. Hell, he is already, even though Le Gros isn't on the opera committee.

Musichetta, sitting to Grantaire's right, elbows him gently, and he stills himself. He doesn't know how she isn't nervous, since this is technically her recital meeting as much as it is Combeferre's, and Enjolras's, and Joly and Bossuet's and Courfeyrac's and Cosette's and basically half to three quarters of Theory, everyone using Combeferre's opera as their senior capstone. Then again, maybe the fact that all of them are there is making her less nervous, and Grantaire is only paranoid because he's not quite sure what his place in the meeting is.

Fantine is one of the few music teachers Grantaire has never actually taken a class with, but she's the first one to speak up, smiling at Combeferre. “How's your progress? Several of your principals have brought your music to me to start working on, and Dr. Lamarque can say the same, but none of them could say if the score was finalized.”

“As finalized as it can be at this exact moment,” says Combeferre. “There are still a few parts that need tweaking, and we may get a few edits during rehearsals even in the spring, but for the most part, the singers should have their parts.”

The professors all ask questions, like it's some sort of preliminary thesis defense, and Grantaire mostly sits there trying to look attentive while Combeferre talks about recitatives in iambic pentameter and dramatic tension and influences from other composers, and while the others field questions about approximately how many minutes of featured singing they have and their comfort with the ranges Combeferre has them singing in and other technical things that don't mean much to Grantaire at the moment, since he's about movement and not singing.

He's at loose ends until Lamarque and Musichetta finish a deep conversation about melisma and Combeferre relaxes like the interrogation is over and takes a folder out of his stack and opens it. “We should talk about general production needs, for rehearsals and budget and support.”

Dr. Myriel smiles at him. “I've had a talk with Professor Javert, if you get orchestra parts to him in the new semester he'll allow the chamber group to play your opera as their concert. He's already aware of the instrumental solos, and those won't count as recitals but they will be taken into account for independent study credit.”

“What about Marius?” says Courfeyrac. “He's signed on as our rehearsal accompanist, and Professor Javert wasn't sure about his independent study credit.”

“Taken care of,” says Fantine, because she dotes on her favorite singers and their pet accompanist from what he's heard and it's fairly adorable.

Combeferre talks about his progress on expanding his written accompaniment out into an orchestral score, complete with instrumentation decisions, and Grantaire tunes out until Combeferre says “We should also talk about set design, if we're going to talk budget,” because he actually cares about that.

To his shock, the first response anyone has to that is Enjolras saying, completely casually, “R, you have some thoughts on that, don't you?”

Grantaire freezes for about three seconds while everyone looks over at him, more because Enjolras was the one to say it than because of the attention, and only manages to answer when Musichetta elbows him and Combeferre nods at him at the same time. “A few, yeah, not sure how feasible any of them are. My dance partner and I were talking about the possibility of levels, platforms at different heights or something. I figure, if we're supposed to be fairies, we can't exactly fly without a lot of rigging but this could give a little illusion.”

“Could be hard to jump around and breathe properly for singing at the same time,” Courfeyrac points out, with a thoughtful frown.

“That's up to you guys, I'm not choreographing everyone's movements, just my own and Floréal's and maybe a little bit whoever I share scenes with—Enjolras mostly, and Musichetta, I might need you to do a little with me?”

“Absolutely,” she says, leaning into his shoulder.

He straightens up and looks around the table. “I do think the platforms are a good idea, though, lots of steps and levels in different parts of the stage, some close enough together that Floréal and I can jump around between them if that works its way into the choreography.”

“I like it,” says Combeferre. “It would go a long way towards making the stage look more like a forest, especially if there are branches or trees.”

“We also need a clear area with no obstructions in the middle of it, even if that isn't center stage. The choreography I've got for the long Puck and Oberon duet takes up some space. Plus, you don't want to block parts of the stage that you'd want the audience to see with trees or levels.”

Combeferre nods. “Give me some idea as to space and I'll talk to Feuilly, he's got the most connections among the art majors and we're hoping to get some of them involved in set construction.”

“Half the senior class of this university is going to be on independent study next semester,” says Dr. Lamarque, amused.

“Any other thoughts, Grantaire?” says Joly, grinning across Musichetta like he's proud.

Grantaire shrugs, because unfortunately his brilliant ideas don't tend to last long enough to impress. “Nothing that would impact the whole production, I think? But, costuming question for whoever knows, Floréal and I need to know if we should be barefoot or in shoes for this show, because that's going to have major impact, especially on the ballet sections. I like barefoot, but if we're doing shoes we're doing some pointe work and we'll have to start practicing that really soon.”

“I like barefoot,” Cosette says firmly.

“We'll double check about safety standards on the Arts Center stage,” says Fantine. “I can have an answer to Combeferre within the week.”

The conversation continues from there, going around in circles about budgets and safety and set design, where Grantaire chips in a few more times, and by the time it's over, Grantaire is exhausted, and his roommates seem to be in the same boat judging by Bossuet's dramatic flop into the backseat of the car when they get there. “That was the longest meeting in the world.”

“I thought it was interesting,” Grantaire says, because parts of it were and he's not afraid to say it.

“Great, you can go to the rest of them for me.” Musichetta squeezes his shoulder before she gets behind the wheel, leaving him to sit in the back with Bossuet, who seems to be in one of his sprawling moods. “Are you thinking of going into set design?” she adds, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“No, I just know what I like to dance on, Floréal and I talked about it.”

“It would be pretty late to change to an art major anyway,” says Joly, swallowing a yawn, and then he turns on the radio.

Grantaire hums along with The Eagles even though he's the only person in the car who can't carry a tune, and a minute later, the other three are harmonizing, informing him that the Queen of Diamonds will hurt him if she's able, and he relaxes and laughs and runs over the steps to his _pas de deux_ with Floréal in his head the whole ride home.

*

There's a knock on the door of the studio five minutes into Grantaire's reserved time, when he's in the middle of explaining to Enjolras just how to hold his arm so Grantaire can try to turn under it. “Sorry,” he says, and disengages. “Normally reserved studio time is sacrosanct, so if a dance major is knocking either the building is on fire or Pavlova's been raised from the dead.”

“Of course.” Enjolras stays where he is and Grantaire goes over to the door, expecting Le Gros checking on his progress, or maybe Irma asking if he wants to run their feature for Modern in the winter showcase, since Le Gros has cruelly separated him from Floréal.

Instead, it's Floréal, hair pulled into a perfect ballerina bun, pink-cheeked, probably just out of a private tutorial, and she grins at him when he opens the door. “I saw you had the room reserved, I thought I would ask if you want to run through our routine—and you have company.” She raises her eyebrows at him, because she knows what Enjolras looks like. “You have _company_.”

She doesn't sound happily scandalized, like Irma would, or like she's winking at him without doing the action, like any of his roommates would (with anyone but Enjolras), because Floréal was his first call when he decided he was done, and he knows exactly what this looks like to her. “We're running some of the smaller pieces we've got to do together, and I'm trying to teach him how to do a little very basic partnering.”

“Need an assistant?”

That sounds like a question, but it is not a question. He turns around to at least ask Enjolras the token question. “Do you mind, Enjolras? I'm more used to partnering than being partnered, she would probably have some tips for both of us.”

“Of course, if you think it would help.” Enjolras holds out his hand to shake when Grantaire lets Floréal by, taking her bag as she comes in the door and dropping it next to his own. “I'm Enjolras. You must be Floréal, R speaks of you often.”

Floréal declines to shake his hand, just frowns and starts shucking off her cardigan. Enjolras drops his hand after a second. “Yes, I'm Floréal,” she says when it's clear to everyone that she will not be shaking hands. “You're the one playing Oberon, if he's talking about partnering.” And she definitely knows that. “R, how complex do you want this to be?”

“He's obviously not going to be lifting me. I don't know if I'm spinning or if he's going to counterbalance while I do an arabesque or what, I've been trying a simple turn under his hand but it looks kind of ballroom even when I'm _demi-pointe_.” He turns to Enjolras. “Show her?”

Enjolras is still frowning like he's thinking, but he automatically straightens up, holds his hand up at the right angle (his muscle memory is great, with some training he could have been a great dancer), palm up. Grantaire places his hand in his, barely a touch, and turns easily under his arm, like they've been waltzing.

Floréal is frowning when he faces her again. “You're right, that does read kind of ballroom. Can he counterbalance? Here, show him.”

Grantaire steps away from Enjolras and holds out an automatic arm to Floréal, letting her rest weight on their gripped hands so she can move into an _arabesque penché_ , facing him. It's harder than it looks, playing balance without bending or letting her fall, but Enjolras still nods when Floréal straightens and they drop hands. “I think I can do that.”

“Arm out.” Enjolras holds out his left arm, and Grantaire repositions it a little lower, changes the angle of his wrist, and leaves it there for a few seconds to let Enjolras get used to how his muscles are supposed to feel. Every dance teacher he's ever had would scold him for Enjolras's form, but Enjolras isn't a danseur, so they have to do their best to improvise. “Okay, the hand is the center of a teeter-totter, do your best to keep me steady.”

“You are fucking kidding,” Floréal mutters, but she doesn't make any move to say anything different, so Grantaire puts his hand in Enjolras's again (and a year ago he would have killed for this and that's probably half the reason she's mad) and bends just like Floréal did, holding the pose until Enjolras seems a little strained, even though Grantaire has enough control that he's barely resting any weight on him.

“Harder than it looks,” says Enjolras when Grantaire steps back, shaking his arm out. “It could work, though, better than a turn. If I could hold you long enough, while I was singing, I could grab you for the parts where I need to address you directly.”

“Could work. We would need to be exactly on-beat, we would have to drill it a lot, but it could look good.” He looks over at Floréal. “Want to demonstrate?”

She flexes, up into relevé from second position and then back again. “Okay. Circles, right?”

“Sure. A little past arm's length, that's where I'm keeping to during most of the number, and I'll try to catch you either between my three and four or between my eight and nine, so nobody's upstaging anyone.”

Floréal smiles at him and then looks over his shoulder to Enjolras, expression going flat until Enjolras clears away to lean against the wall where he'll be able to watch them. Grantaire doesn't know which of them to make an apologetic face at, so he goes to Enjolras's usual mark instead and gives Floréal a nod. She doesn't do anything fancy, though he'd half expected her to show off with Enjolras around, just makes a few turns and poses, and when he catches her she goes seamlessly into the _arabesque_ again, meeting his eyes because she was obviously listening about it being a conversation. He pushes her off a few seconds later, spinning her back into her circles, and catches her a rotation and a half later on the other side, where they do the same thing.

“Make sense?” he asks Enjolras when he's let Floréal go and she stops a few steps back.

“Again, I suspect it looks easier than it is, but I hope not too difficult for me to learn.” Enjolras pushes off the wall. “Shall we try?”

Floréal frowns. “I've got to go, unfortunately, can't play guinea pig all afternoon.” She grabs Grantaire's arm, holds on tight enough that he knows she means business. “Let me know if you need me, okay? Even if it's to buy a plane ticket.”

“Won't get there again,” he says quietly, and hopes Enjolras doesn't ask.

For a second, he thinks she might call bullshit, but a second later she shakes her head, so apparently she finally believes him. Or she's decided to let him fuck up his own life choices. “Okay.” She turns back to Enjolras. “Pleasure finally meeting you,” she says, and it's so insincere it's a little painful, but Enjolras nods politely anyway, and a minute later she's breezing out the door.

When she's gone, Grantaire waits for Enjolras to say something, to ask why Floréal dislikes him so much and so obviously when they've never met, or what she meant about plane tickets, but Enjolras just looks at him with narrowed eyes for a few seconds before he clears his throat. “Let's try again,” he says, and goes to his mark.

*

Grantaire's mind is a jumble of dance steps, some days. Well, most days, but at this point in the semester they always build themselves into a mess of routines, and it's worse than ever with the opera, to the point where he doesn't even notice he's doing his Modern steps for the winter showcase with his fingers on the table he's eating at in the Union until Combeferre sits down across from him and raises his eyebrows.

Grantaire puts his hand in his lap and only belatedly says “Hey, to what do I owe the honor?”

Combeferre nods over at the little stage in the Union, where some harassed-looking students wearing matching t-shirts are setting up some sound equipment. “Acoustic night. I try to go as often as I can, usually I know a person or two performing, and Éponine is going tonight. I think she wanted to do a few this semester to prepare her for her recital.”

“There need to be dance open mics, I'm driving myself up the wall this semester.”

“Sorry about that. I'll grab you a coffee when I go get my refill, if you like. What are you doing on campus this late?”

“Sometimes I get out of the apartment on date night because I figure they deserve a few nights that end less in food fights and lively debate about pop culture and more in feeding each other dessert and a Motown music fade-to-black.” Combeferre's mouth twitches, and Grantaire grins back. “I'll stay for acoustic night, if you want company and don't mind me judging anyone who plays 'Wonderwall' or 'Wagon Wheel.'”

“I'll be judging too, probably.”

“Is it really painful for music majors to come to this kind of thing?”

Combeferre shrugs. “Not always. And not when Éponine is going to be singing.”

“I haven't heard her do much outside of official music department concerts.” Combeferre doesn't seem to have anything to say to that, so Grantaire fidgets for a few seconds before he tries a different conversational tack. He's not great at silence. “So, how badly is the opera stressing you out?”

“Last night, I had a dream that everyone I knew had laryngitis and we did the show in mime, including fake stairs and invisible boxes and face paint, and woke up to find that I'd fallen asleep on my laptop with the orchestra parts open and that I had, at some point in the night, woken up and typed 'fuck brass' at the top of the trumpet part.” Combeferre pauses after his flat-voiced recitation and smiles. “It is stressing me out.”

“Last week I woke up in the middle of the night and went to get a snack and Joly was up studying and informs me that instead of walking I actually did ballet steps over to the fridge, pirouetted when I closed the door, and then went back to my room. I have no way of confirming or denying if this is true or if he was fucking with me, which probably says a lot.”

Combeferre laughs. “Enjolras says you've been working pretty constantly.”

“Floréal made fun of me because I was standing around waiting for her one time and I was standing there in fifth position just as natural as can be.”

“Courfeyrac asked if I was humming at breakfast the other morning and I hadn't even realized I was doing it.”

Grantaire raises an imaginary glass. “We should start a club for people who are unhealthily obsessed with your opera.”

Combeferre raises his coffee in return. “There seem to be a lot of us, but you and I may have it the worst.”

“Oh, I definitely think you have it the worst.”

“You are helping a lot, though. I'm more grateful than I can possibly say, I'm looking forward to seeing some of what you have.”

“We can arrange that, definitely. I'm meeting with Floréal tomorrow and Enjolras on Friday, you can come to either rehearsal, or both, if you want, as long as you don't mind things still being a little rough.”

“Not at all, and I'd love to see. Maybe I'll come with Enjolras, since he'll probably be coming from home anyway. Though of course I'd love to meet Floréal as well.” There's a pause then, of the significant kind that Grantaire doesn't fill because he wants to know what Combeferre is watching him so levelly for. The more poker-faced Combeferre gets, the less anyone likes whatever comes out of his mouth next. “He says he met Floréal the other day.”

“Yeah, she stopped by while we were practicing.”

They wait the silence out again, because if Grantaire doesn't volunteer something he may get to hear what Enjolras thought of that, since Enjolras didn't mention it once for the rest of their session. “She didn't seem to like him much, Enjolras said. Didn't say much beyond that, but if it was overt enough for Enjolras to notice ...”

“It's not going to be a problem,” Grantaire says, because that's the most relevant information. Combeferre is directing an opera, he has to know if one of his featured dancers is going to strangle one of his leads. “But yeah, she's not a huge fan. Not really Enjolras's fault, she's just a little protective.”

“I see.” And the worst thing is that Combeferre probably does, and that he will never in a million years mention it, not unless Grantaire does first. “I'm not worried that it's going to be a problem, I was just mentioning. Is she a girlfriend? You never mentioned, but you talk about her a lot.”

“No, just my dance partner and my jaeger co-pilot, she has a terrible business major boyfriend she loves to distraction. No accounting for taste, I suppose.” Combeferre snorts. “That's my basic thought on the matter too, but hey, he signed up for ballroom dance and joined the swing dance club because he wanted to dance with her, so I don't hate him as much as I could. You aren't allowed to tell her that, though, as far as she is concerned he's my mortal enemy.”

“Of course.” Combeferre taps his fingers on the table a few times. “Text me about times and places and I'll show up and see your progress. In the meantime, it's five minutes until the open mic starts and I want to refresh my coffee. Can I get you something?”

“Green tea?”

“Done.” Combeferre stands up, leaving his jacket on his seat, and Grantaire leans back and sees the crowd, which is modest but larger than he was expecting. Jehan and Feuilly are over on the other side of the room, and Jehan waves when he sees Grantaire looking but doesn't gesture him over, which probably means they saw that Combeferre was there or that Feuilly is having one of his rare vents, which he shares out fairly equally between all of his friends but never bestows on more than one person at once.

The emcee comes up on stage before Combeferre comes back, introducing three dudes with their acoustic guitars, one of whom has a harmonica too, and Grantaire settles in for an interlude of scathing mental commentary. Combeferre, when he returns with a steaming cup of hot water and a teabag, as well as his own coffee, looks about as enthused as Grantaire, but he doesn't talk while other people are playing music, so Grantaire keeps his commentary to himself.

Éponine is called up fourth to do her two songs, and she doesn't have as big a following as the first or second acts but Grantaire makes sure to cheer as loud as he can, and from the other side of the room he hears Jehan's distinct whistle and Feuilly yelling, so Éponine takes the stage smiling, clutching her guitar in one hand as she sits down on the stool they provide for her. “Hey, everyone.” She looks a lot more at home on the stage than Grantaire has ever seen her off it. “I'm Éponine, and I'm going to give you a little Nina Simone.”

Listening to Éponine sing the blues is a privilege, because she sings low and mellow, the guitar a barely-there accompaniment, and not all the audience is engaged, but she's got a lot of them eating out of the palm of her hand by the second verse. When Grantaire glances over at Combeferre, he's got his eyes closed, leaning back a little in his chair, concentrating completely on listening to her.

“Thanks,” she says when that's done, and Grantaire doesn't look again but he can feel Combeferre start next to him. “I'm realizing now I probably should have finished with Nina, because now I'm finishing with inflicting my own songwriting skills on you guys, but tough shit, I guess we'll all have to survive this one. I wrote it last summer, and I guess you can draw your own conclusions about it.”

Grantaire laughs along with a few other people, over the first few notes of the introduction, and then he settles in to listen again. It's a fast song and he doesn't catch all the lyrics, something about wolves and being angry, but he knows enough to be proud of her (which he can never explain to her for fear of being castrated). He doesn't know what it means, but it's not about Marius having a girlfriend and a boyfriend and neither of them her, which is really impressive since she wrote it over the summer, when the news was fresh.

When it's over, he gets up and cheers, and Jehan and Feuilly do the same on the other side of the room. Combeferre takes a minute before he stands up and joins in, and Grantaire looks at his face and thinks _I know how that feels_ and decides not to mention it, because Combeferre has always been kind enough not to mention it to him.

Éponine, up on the stage, is laughing and blowing kisses, and Grantaire often thinks that if there's anyone he knows who's going to become world-famous it's definitely her. He cheers louder, until she turns his way and rolls her eyes, and then steps off the stage, letting the emcee take it back, the crowd settling down again as a white boy with dreadlocks and a ukulele takes the stage (Grantaire feels a little sorry for him, because Éponine is a hard act to follow, but not much).

Grantaire picks up his tea. “I should probably head out before the Three Musketeers start texting me.”

Combeferre blinks at him like he'd forgotten Grantaire was there, and Grantaire decides he's more amused than offended. “I thought it was date night?”

“They'll have had time to eat dinner by now, and they're either watching a movie or having sex, so it's probably safe to go home.”

For a second, Combeferre looks torn, glancing at Éponine, who's over at Jehan and Feuilly's table, all stillness now that she's not on stage, listening to Jehan tell her something, and then he nods. “I'll see you soon, then. Text me about times you're rehearsing, with Enjolras and Floréal, or even on your own. I won't interrupt whole practice times, but I'm interested to see what you have.”

Grantaire salutes, even though it makes Combeferre roll his eyes, and gets to his feet in the middle of an earnest ukulele cover of a Stones song. He's really glad they're sitting towards the back. “Tell her she did great from me.”

“I will,” says Combeferre, and Grantaire hides his grin in a sip of tea as he walks away.

*

_Entrechat, entrechat, demi-plié, arabesque._

“Watch your turnout,” says Le Gros from the practice room door, and Grantaire wonders if he would dismiss it as hyperbole if Grantaire complained of nearly spraining an ankle in his surprise. “You're losing some of it in the air and it's going to fuck up your landings if you don't start paying better attention. All this switching back and forth between styles is messing with your discipline.”

Grantaire freezes. “You disapprove?”

“I think it works with the score and the story, from what you've shown me and told me, but it's hell on your turnout.” Le Gros nods over towards the barre. “First position. Ten _pliés_. Practice at the barre with Floréal more often, she'll whip you back into shape.”

Grantaire goes to the barre, centers himself, takes a breath, and double-checks his turnout before dipping into a _plié_. “We try, I've just been busy with the opera.”

“Hmm. Deeper.” Grantaire does it again, better this time, judging by Le Gros's nod. “Been thinking about interviews for companies yet?”

This _plié_ is a stall, and they both know it, so he executes it in perfect form as apology. The answer is that he's had tabs for some independent dance companies open on his browser for a month and hasn't done anything to figure out interviews for any of them. “I've been busy with the opera,” he says again, and knows it sounds like an excuse, mostly because it is one. Le Gros doesn't dignify it with a response. “I've looked up a few companies. I know I haven't got the body type for traditional ballet, so I'm checking out some offbeat opportunities.”

“If you ever end up in a company that requires you to paint yourself blue or anything similar I will disown you, but that's a good idea. I've dropped your name a few times in conversation with some friends of mine, talked about your choreography experience. There's a start-up ballet out of Portland that seemed interested, I'll give you their card.”

“Portland is a ways away.”

“Unfortunately, dancers and musicians don't always get to choose where they spend their early professional years, or any of their professional years.” Le Gros smiles, and despite his next words, it doesn't seem like he's mocking. “Unless you and your friends decide to start an opera company of your own. Except you aren't allowed to steal Floréal for that, because she's got an audition with a company out of Toronto with a good reputation.”

“Ah, but if I stole her she'd be a prima ballerina.” Le Gros rolls his eyes, and Grantaire does another _plié_. “I wouldn't. Her career choices are her own. I think she's aiming for New York, because of her boyfriend, but I guess Toronto could be worse given how these things go.”

Le Gros snorts. “He can yell at poor corporate underlings anywhere, as far as I'm concerned he can follow her around while she dances. She wants to audition in New York, and she does have a chance, but I want her to cultivate her options like I want you to cultivate yours. So you'll call the man in Portland, set up an audition, and send me a short list of companies you're considering so I can see about recommendations and networking.”

“Thanks, professor.” Grantaire finishes his set of ten. “Looking better?”

“Yes. Drill it into your head, though, I've had too many dancers slack off in their senior years and end up teaching the tango at their local senior centers, and while I have a great respect for the institution of ballroom classes for anyone who wants them, that is not my dream for you.”

Grantaire laughs. “Ten more, then?”

“Try ten more on this side, twenty on the other, and then the whole thing again in second. We'll talk about your ballet drills and your auditions next time we have a tutorial, I just wanted to stop in and see how you're doing.”

“Thanks,” says Grantaire, and falls into another _plié_ as Le Gros leaves and shuts the door behind him.

**December**

The last two weeks of the semester seem to come out of nowhere. They always do, but even that knowledge always seems to come out of nowhere, so it leaves Grantaire in pretty much the same place, sore and tired and brain full of steps and philosophical arguments. His courseload isn't as bad as it could be, with the independent study credit, but he's taking one last philosophy course post-capstone to fill his last requirement and Le Gros is making him write out the theory he's using for _Midwinter_ since he doesn't have a performance for that until spring, plus he's still doing research about companies and sending audition e-mails.

“I may actually cry,” he informs Bossuet across the kitchen table at midnight, when all four of them are sitting up late with their laptops open, scowling blearily and eating Everything In The Pantry Party/Trail Mix (which tonight includes popcorn and gummy worms and fruit loops).

“At least there's only one more semester to go.”

“Speak for yourself,” says Joly, who is miserably up to his ears in grad applications instead of homework. “You know what we should do? We should all get jobs as entertainers on a cruise ship.”

“That would be awesome,” says Bossuet. “Grantaire, you could wear a hat with fruit on it!”

“I am already sold on this plan.”

“Only if I get a fruit hat too,” says Musichetta, surfacing from her textbook. “Real fruit, it can get smaller through the night, it would be like performance art.”

“This is brilliant. We should start our own cruise line, I would make a badass cabana boy.” Grantaire leans back and stretches. “I would even teach you how to tapdance, that's how into this plan I am.”

“I am going to make us all fruit hats, and then we are going to tapdance,” says Joly with an expansive gesture, and then he interrupts himself with a yawn, tipping over to lean on Bossuet's shoulder. “In the morning, maybe.”

Grantaire hooks his ankle around their tangled ones, and smiles when Musichetta leans into Bossuet's other side and holds a hand out for Grantaire, waiting until he moves his chair close enough to lean on her. “Definitely in the morning,” she says. “I don't think any of us are going to get much more useful studying done tonight.”

“I'm really going to miss this next year,” Grantaire says into Musichetta's shoulder, and almost hopes they don't hear him.

“You're not going to have a chance to miss it,” Bossuet says firmly, kicking first Joly and then Musichetta before he manages to make contact with Grantaire's shin. “No matter where any of us end up, we're going to visit and Skype all the time. And when we're all famous and retired we're all going to have a community arts nonprofit, all of Theory is committed to this plan, you should be too.”

“What, Enjolras is going to start it so it's picking up steam by the time voices start giving out?”

Joly snorts. “Try and stop him, he's into the plan. Which is stupid, he could definitely wait till he's in his thirties and take the world by storm first. Lamarque looks like he wants to cry a little whenever Enjolras agrees to an audition and calls it a back-up plan.”

“He would.” Grantaire sighs and squeezes Musichetta's knee before she feels the need to change the subject. He doesn't want Enjolras to be a subject they tiptoe around anymore. It's stupid, when they've been meeting once or twice a week to dance. “Well, when I'm older and grouchier and arthritic, I will gladly come save the world one earnest production of _Oliver!_ at a time.”

“Fuck you, _Oliver!_ is awesome.” Musichetta sounds like she's half asleep, which is probably a sign that they should get up or risk falling asleep at the table. Their late-night study sessions usually happen on the king-sized bed in their bedroom, but Joly decided it would be better for their spines to sit up for once, which Grantaire really regrets. It's kind of nice, waking up with his nose smashed in Bossuet's stomach and Musichetta pinning him down with her legs. Joly sleeps all neat and contained but those two are inveterate cuddlers.

“It definitely is,” he says, and levers himself to his feet. “Come on, bedtime for all good sopranos and baritones.”

Joly or Bossuet mutters something about being a very evil baritone, and Grantaire rolls his eyes and hauls them all to their feet in turn, shepherding them all in the direction of their bedroom. He's way better at late nights than any of them.

The next ten minutes are a mess of all of them muttering at their laptops and each other with equal amounts of affectionate annoyance, until Joly and Musichetta finally make it into their room, leaving Bossuet to give Grantaire a sloppy kiss on the cheek and then grip his shoulder. “First the cruise ship, then the world,” he says, and goes to bed, leaving Grantaire grinning to himself in the middle of their living room.

If, later on, he opens up some pages for cruise lines looking for entertainers, that's his own business. It's always good to have a back-up plan, even if his isn't as glamorous as Enjolras's.

*

“Any plans for winter break?”

It's only a question to fill the awkward silence while Grantaire stretches a cramp out of his calf, but it's surprising nonetheless, and he glances up at Enjolras to find him picking at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. “Going to my grandma's for Christmas and then the west coast for some auditions in the new year. You?”

“Combeferre's father's house. I went to his mother's for Thanksgiving.”

“Of course, sharing holidays is important. No auditions yourself?”

“Maybe.” Which doesn't sound cagey at all. Grantaire decides it's not his job to ask. “You went to New York last winter break, right?”

And isn't that a loaded question for anyone who knows what the load is? “Yes, Floréal took me, we saw _The Nutcracker_ and the Rockettes and wandered around the city. You have some auditions there? That's the bigtime.”

“Some potential ones, anyway. Lamarque is encouraging me.” Enjolras does not look pleased. Grantaire would kill for New York companies to come knocking on his door, and most arts majors agree. Enjolras is a very strange human being. “Anywhere you recommend to visit while I'm in the city?”

“Ride the subways, check all the stations, see what kind of buskers you can find. That's what I did, when Floréal let me. I figure you'll appreciate it, since it's still kind of grassroots even if the city is making them fill out applications and shit these days.” He tests his leg. “I'll be ready to start again in a minute.”

Enjolras rolls his shoulders. He has a habit of sympathy stretching whenever Grantaire is doing it, which Grantaire pretends is more funny than sweet because that is a road he does not need to go down again. “It will be strange not rehearsing for almost a month. For the opera, I mean.”

“Be grateful for the break. Come spring semester, I think Combeferre has plans to make us all cry.”

Enjolras doesn't seem sure if he should be scowling or smiling, and compromises on some weird combination of the two. “Combeferre has never deliberately made anyone cry.”

“I like that you have to specify deliberately because of Marius. Poor Marius. I'm glad he gets cuddled by his hot significant others on a regular basis.”

Enjolras shakes his head, but he's tipped over into a real smile, probably because his mixed feelings on Marius are mitigated by him dating Courfeyrac and Cosette, both of whom he adores. “I didn't mean that, though. I mean that we have a routine going. I feel like this is the first semester where I've had a chance to get to know you, and we only have one more left.”

Grantaire doesn't look up and concentrates very hard on the relief of the last release of his muscle. “That's the lament of college, isn't it? All the missed opportunities, all the missed people.”

“It's just stupid because we're friends with all the same people,” says Enjolras, suddenly impatient, and Grantaire is glad about that. He's back on even ground if Enjolras is impatient or annoyed, and he uses the opportunity to stand up. “So I'm glad we're remedying that, finally getting to know each other.”

“Well, it's an honor.” Grantaire gets in position for their last musical interaction, which is short but still giving them both trouble. “I need to start doing these really intensively with Musichetta in the spring, I interact with her less but I still interact with her.”

“The three of us should meet up for this last part sometime,” Enjolras says, going to his mark. Adapting this all to the stage is going to be hard if it's a different size, but Grantaire will worry about that later. Combeferre has been e-mailing him set design sketches from the art department and he's been doing his best critiques of them, so they should end up with something workable. “Early next semester, maybe. This isn't working and it might click better with her here.”

“We could ask Combeferre, too.” Grantaire starts his steps, little movements between Enjolras and where he hopes Musichetta will be, and then he stops. “This feels really fucking trite, being pulled between the two of you. I know my decision, I think I'm getting it across, but Puck isn't who Oberon and Titania fought over, it was always the boy, and Éponine is firmly Team Titania. But I don't think I should be in the middle of the action.”

“Okay, what if we—” Enjolras interrupts himself by taking Grantaire by the forearm and pulling him, letting him go just in time for him to spin a few times and take a controlled fall to his knees using the momentum. “Oh, I was just thinking behind me, but that's good, it's like a mirror of the end of our first number.”

“And it stops me getting in the way of your and Musichetta's big number. I can do a lot with body language on the floor if I need to.” He pushes himself to his feet. “However, your push was sloppy, I need more momentum than that, you've really got to pretend like you're throwing me. Do you want me away from you, or do you want me behind you and away from Titania? As Oberon, I mean. Makes a difference in how you move me.”

“Away from Titania, I think. Gentler?”

“Less so, probably. Away from you, you'd probably push me towards the back of the stage, that doesn't take as much of a turn on your part as putting me behind you does.” Grantaire goes back to his mark. “Try it again, from about where Musichetta is laying down the law, and when she gets to the whole 'and your little dog too bit,' then you grab me and you move me.”

Enjolras hums a little while he dances, probably doesn't even realize he's doing it, and Grantaire keeps his smile to himself as they run through the move again and again until he's sure Enjolras won't wrench either of their shoulders doing it, and then again with the music to make sure it stays in rhythm.

“Winter showcase is in a few days,” he says when they're both packing their bags after drinking all the water they have with them. “And then I'm on audition prep for the rest of the semester. So I won't be able to rehearse until the new semester.”

Enjolras nods. “That's fine, I have a paper to finish for Theory, though I'm done with all my performances for the semester. You came out for the university choir concert, right?”

“Would I miss when ninety percent of my friends are in it? No, it was great. Doing it in your last semester despite the opera?”

“Of course. I love opera, but I love singing in groups as well.”

“Same with dancing. Nothing like being part of a corps.”

“What are you doing in the showcase?”

“Group dance, and a duet with a friend of mine, Le Gros is letting us do some hip-hop, which is good, I haven't had a chance to do it in a few years.”

Enjolras pauses. “Floréal? The friend?”

Of course Enjolras noticed that she would rather slap him than shake his hand. Grantaire really hopes he never asks, because he does not want to explain, ever. “No, another friend, Irma. I don't know if you've met her.” Enjolras shakes his head. “Well, she's great. I'm glad to be dancing with her.”

“I'll look forward to working with you next semester, then,” is all Enjolras has to say to that, and Grantaire takes that cue to see him out the door before shutting down the practice room and making sure it's ready for the next person.

*

Just outside the arts center stage door, Grantaire finds himself greeted by a flower arrangement he's pretty sure was intended for a funeral, judging by its size and majestic air, and all the Theory group standing around it with grins and congratulations. Floréal is still backstage getting her makeup off, so he lets them sweep him up in hugs even while he protests that he's too sweaty to do anyone any good.

“I'm surprised you all made it, with finals starting in two days,” he says once he's made the rounds and they've all backed away further into the lobby so other dancers don't have to fight their way through them to get to their friends and family.

Éponine, nearest him, shrugs. “It's your last winter showcase, and who the fuck knows if we'll be able to make it to see you in the spring, with the opera? So we all thought we'd make an evening of it.”

“You're the best dancer any of us knows,” says Jehan. “Enjolras mentioned the showcase, and you hadn't, so we wanted to come.”

“You need to mention that shit,” Bahorel interjects, in his laying-down-the-law voice. “I had to reschedule a Skype date with Joy.”

Grantaire laughs and claps him on the shoulder. “I'm really sorry about that. You should have snuck her in on Skype, held up the camera so she could see me do my thing!”

“I'll remember that next time.”

Everyone is chattering over each other about their favorite numbers (“Besides Grantaire's,” Cosette says, “because that isn't fair otherwise”), and Grantaire lets the conversation wash over him, grinning, until he turns a little and finds Enjolras just looking over to him from Feuilly. “Enjoy the show?” he asks, because Enjolras doesn't look away right away and they're standing close enough that it would be weird to try to have an eye contact conversation.

“It was good. I enjoy most shows. You and Irma were very good.” He pauses. “So was Floréal.”

“She pretty much brought the house down,” Grantaire says, because there's no denying that. Floréal is the queen of the dance department, except for one freshman who by all accounts could do an arabesque before she could walk and who is by Floréal's account trying to usurp her place, but the freshman didn't get a solo and she did so really, Floréal came out on top of that one.

“She did,” says Joly, putting an arm around Grantaire's shoulders and ruffling his hair. “Is she coming out? I want to say hi and tell her she did great. We were thinking about going out for some late-night snacks, treating you, she's welcome to come.”

Grantaire smiles at Joly, because it's hard not to smile at Joly when he gets all earnest. “I'll ask her. She and I and her boyfriend usually go out after a show, sometimes Irma comes, but I bet I could convince her to combine the gatherings.”

“Don't let us take you away from a tradition,” says Courfeyrac.

Grantaire shakes his head. “Not at all, she won't mind. Wall Street might but I am going to get a real kick out of all of you guys making horrified faces every time he airs a political opinion. Floréal is training him, but still, it's going to be hilarious to watch.” He pulls his phone out and texts her. _My music majors are inviting you and Venture Capitalist out for late-night snacks. Denny's run?_

He gets a text back a few minutes later. _Sometimes I think you're covering for the fact that you don't know his real name. And sure, we'll be out in ten, don't run off without us._

“They're coming,” he says. “I think Irma said her parents are in town so I'm not going to try to invite her along, but I figure Floréal is enough fun for anyone. Can we wait ten minutes?”

“We know how to occupy ten minutes.” Courfeyrac grins at his girlfriend and boyfriend, and really, that's more than Grantaire ever wanted to know about Marius Pontmercy's quickie skills.

“In public,” says Combeferre, whose mind obviously runs on similarly dirty lines, and then turns to Grantaire. “It was nice of Le Gros to mention the opera when he introduced your dance with Irma. Did you ask him to?”

“No, and I'm kind of shocked he thinks it's going well enough to mention it in front of people he potentially wants his students to impress. But I'm glad you're happy about the mention, I would have asked if I'd known he was going to mention it.”

Combeferre smiles and shakes his head. “Like I said, it was nice. I will never say no to free advertising, since this all got more out of hand than I was expecting when I first started scribbling notes down in a composition elective two years ago.”

All conversations lead to the opera, and Grantaire lets this one turn that way, everyone talking about advertising and Combeferre complaining about Dr. Javert making him rewrite some of the woodwind parts when he submitted the parts two weeks early, probably just out of spite. He gets tired as the conversation goes on, and he's about to surreptitiously find a place to sit when Floréal appears at his side, pastel-polo-shirted boyfriend in her wake. “Thanks for waiting,” she says, and gives everyone the charming smile that she turns on people when she's waiting to decide if they're worth her time. She and Éponine are either going to love each other or hate each other. “Grantaire mentioned Denny's? I could definitely go for a milkshake and some breakfast food, I've been living off salad all week.”

The group starts moving, because that's one of Floréal's great talents, everyone introducing themselves to her boyfriend and telling her that her dance was awesome while they walk to and pile into the not-quite-enough cars they have.

Grantaire, riding with Bossuet and Musichetta and Joly, is in the last car to get there, and when he gets out, Enjolras and Floréal stop in the middle of a conversation, both turning to look at him.

That does not bode well, but Grantaire ignores it, just asks everyone why they're waiting outside when they could be in ordering delicious fatty treats and gets them all moving again.

*

“It's been more than a week since I talked to Enjolras,” Grantaire says towards the end of his Christmas night phone call with Floréal. “It's really weird that it's weird that I haven't talked to him that long.”

“You got into a routine, with the rehearsals,” she says, and there's a wealth of disapproval in just how even her voice is. “He got into a routine too, but he hasn't texted you or anything, right?”

That stings, but not as much as it would have a while ago. “I get it, Floréal. I know. And it's starting to piss me off a little that nobody seems to believe me when I say it isn't a problem anymore.”

“I know it's not a problem now, but it could be again, and that's what's got me worried.”

“I think we're friends.” Which sounds so stupid, because of course they're friends. They've spent time together several times a week during the school year ever since they were freshmen and Grantaire was taking a music theory elective to learn a little more about the rhythm of the dancing he did and fell in love with the only kind of math he's ever understood. Even if they don't confide in each other, don't tend to have lunch alone except by accident, they're friends if only by association. The opera has just sort of taken the “only by association” part out of it. “Which is the weird part,” he adds, because he thinks it's been a long silence.

“So text him a merry Christmas or whatever non-denominational holiday he celebrates, R. Overthinking is not healthy. Right? You need to get laid.”

He laughs and leans back against the wall in the laundry room, where he's hiding from a mess of cousins and extended family, all of whom are enjoying their post-Christmas celebration a lot now that the kids are in bed. He sort of wishes he'd gone to bed with the kids. “It has been a while. Maybe I'll pick someone up while I'm doing the audition circuit. When do you go to New York?”

“Two days after I go to Toronto, I'll be in the city for New Year's Eve. You?”

“Flight's the day after tomorrow, I'll work my way through the west coast and barely make it in time for the new semester.”

“I'd rather go with you, Le Gros lined me up auditions in all the cold places.”

“You know, great dance only happens where it's cold, consider yourself lucky you're not being sent to Moscow.” Someone a room or two over laughs. “Sorry for whining about Enjolras,” he finally says when almost a minute goes by without a response.

“I don't really care, you can crush on whoever you like. Hell, I'll bring you to New York again, you can sneak into an audition, have your own little ballet Cinderella story.” She sighs. “I'm a little worried, that's all, R. You're doing great with shit right now, and even with shit where he's involved, and I'd really like to make sure it stays that way.”

“I promise this isn't going to end up with you having to sweep up the pieces. I was just saying it's weird to feel weird for not talking to him, even if it's just about Puck and Oberon and whether Shakespeare really intended for them to be seen as dicks or not.”

“God, you and your literary analysis.” She sounds like she's rolling her eyes, and Grantaire grins with his eyes closed, pretending they're not halfway across the country from each other. “Anything in there about whether they were boning? Because the way you're playing it I've got my suspicions.”

“Fuck you,” he says, but he can't help the laugh that comes out with it. “I thought you were saying I didn't have a chance, what's that supposed to be about?”

“I'm just saying what I'm seeing.” She laughs too, and doesn't tell him to be careful again, because that's not Floréal. She'll pick up the pieces if he needs her to (and he hopes he won't, because the least he can do when people try to fix him is stay fixed), but she won't warn him clear too many times unless it gets really bad. “Now, tell me about your audition routine for Portland,” she says when he doesn't have an answer for her previous comment.

Grantaire lets her change the subject, bats questions back and forth until his grandmother knocks on the laundry room door and tells him to get out unless he intends to sleep there.

He texts Enjolras, because it's better than thinking about Enjolras, just a quick holiday wish, and when he wakes up in the morning he has a _you too_ , and it's normal, and if it's weird that it's normal, Grantaire's not going to deal with that yet.

**January**

“Thank you, Mr. Grantaire, it's been a pleasure to meet you.”

Grantaire shakes his hands with the audition committee for yet another company that he doesn't want to be in (and who probably don't want him, based on the plasticine nature of their smiles. Though that might just be LA). “I'll look forward to hearing from you,” he says, because it's the thing to say, and lets himself out of the audition room and then the building without bothering to look at the other men waiting in the hall, because he knows he's not a conventionally attractive dancer and either a troupe is looking for something like him or they aren't, and he can't do much about it either way.

He calls Floréal, since it's noon in California so she'll be up to some kind of adventure around New York, and he's rewarded when she actually picks up the phone, breathless from practicing or going for one of her jogs or possibly having sex with her boyfriend, but normally she just sends him angry texts when he contacts her during the afterglow. “How did it go?” she asks, since this is not the first post-audition call either of them has made in the past week.

“They suck less than the one group who asked me to pretend to be a lemur, but they aren't as cool as the Portland people. In LA for today and tomorrow and then up to Seattle, and then Canada.” He groans, and she makes a sympathetic noise. “How about you?”

“Things are going pretty well, I think. Like I said, Toronto loved me, and we're waiting to see about New York. There are a couple companies here in the city that I'm talking to—oh, randomly, the Met is looking for a corps ballerina, I may audition in your honor.”

“Do it, you can tell them you've got opera experience.”

“I should tell them to hire you, brand new genius choreographer for their operas.”

Grantaire laughs and goes to the side of the sidewalk because LA is a shitty city for walking in but he doesn't want to hail a cab yet, which means he has to find himself lunch somewhere in the neighborhood that won't completely break his wallet. Someone walking by rolls her eyes but he figures there are tourists around all the time and they can deal with someone lurking on the side of the sidewalk talking on his phone. “I should make a name for myself. I mean, it's on my resume, Joly and Musichetta both said it should go on there and Le Gros agreed when I asked, I just haven't been making a thing about it except when people ask.”

“Fuck that, make a thing out of it. Marketable skills, and all.”

“I will in Seattle, see if it makes things go better or worse.”

“Hey, you're in LA, you should see if you can walk onto set for a reality competition show, take the world by storm.”

“Le Gros already told me he would disown me if I tried to go on _So You Think You Can Dance_ , I think that counts for other shows too.”

Floréal laughs, and then swears. “I'm going to tour a theater and then lunch with a woman who runs a traveling company in a little bit, I should really get ready, I need a shower.”

“No one wines and dines me,” Grantaire complains, and makes sure to keep his voice light. Floréal deserves all the wining and dining in the world, and he refuses to make her feel bad about it even if he suspects that she doesn't feel bad at all. Floréal's DNA is made of rainbows and not feeling bad about things.

“Don't worry, when I'm world-famous I'll take you out to dinners and throw hissy fits whenever you aren't hired as my partner.”

“Won't be long at all, then.”

“Damn right it won't,” she says. “Now, I'm going to go, and you're going to find a hot Hollywood star or starlet to sleep with, and you can text me all the dirty details later.”

Grantaire laughs all the way through their goodbyes despite the looks it gets him from the people passing on the street.

*

“How did your auditions go?”

Everyone else who's asked that question has received a tragic groan in response, but Grantaire supposes he has to give Le Gros more than that. “Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver probably liked me the best.”

“And which one did you like the best?”

“Probably Seattle.” Grantaire shrugs. “I don't know, I'm keeping my options open, hoping to get another round of auditions in during spring break, and there's always a few people who get auditions after the spring showcase, so there's a little time.”

“The spring showcase,” Le Gros says quietly, and Grantaire immediately tenses, because that's not a good tone, that's an explaining-bad-news-he-for-once-doesn't-have-schadenfreude-over tone. “Obviously you'll be participating in your class dances, but you're the lead dancer for an opera, and if you're giving that as much time as it deserves, I won't be able to feature you in the showcase.”

It makes sense, and Grantaire reminds himself of that before he opens his mouth. “Want to give everyone else a chance?”

“Want to give you a break.”

He looks down at his lap. “Is Floréal going to lose a chance at a solo too?”

“No, she has less to work on for the opera than you do.” Le Gros stops talking, and when Grantaire looks up, he's doing a stern frown. “The opera will open some doors for you, it just means that learning a featured dance for the spring showcase is going to be next to impossible if you want to do it well.”

“Sucks that I'm losing a chance for auditions, though.”

Le Gros snorts. “If you think every member of the music faculty, with myself involved as well, isn't contacting every opera company, or dance company in my case, that they know of to come to the opera, you're not thinking straight. You'll lose some chances, but I wouldn't have given you my blessing for something this time-consuming if I didn't think it would attract some attention for you.”

Grantaire breathes out. “Feature in a group number?”

“Don't bargain with me, kid.” Le Gros leans back in his chair. “I'll think about it. Shame not to let you dance with Floréal in your last semester, after all, even if you get to do it in the opera.”

Grantaire smiles. “Exactly. Can't deprive me of her company.”

He rolls his eyes. “Tell me about your auditions and your plans for the next few weeks of rehearsal, then. How much of the choreography for the opera do you still have to do?”

Grantaire knows how to answer that, since he spent the last few days of break in between traveling e-mailing back and forth with Combeferre and sometimes Enjolras about remaining dances and how soon the major parts of the set will be built so he can do the parts where he changes levels and know exactly how far he has to gym. His gymnastics are decent but the school doesn't have a lot to practice on and campus staff start getting touchy if he jumps around on their buildings. “All the biggest dances are as choreographed as they can be without a set,” he starts, and decides not to think about the spring showcase for a while.

*

Enjolras is five minutes early to their private rehearsal on the second day of the semester. Grantaire is still warming up when he comes in, comfortable enough not to wait after his knock, which is weird. He's trying not to make it weird, but he isn't quite there yet. “Hold on a minute, I'll finish warming up, I wasn't expecting you for a few minutes.”

“Take your time.”

Grantaire takes him at his word even though usually from Enjolras that means “Finish as soon as possible, let's get started.” To his surprise, Enjolras doesn't show any sign of impatience, just watches him, leaning against the wall next to the door, his bag on the floor on his feet. “How did your auditions go?” he asks when he's leaning into his last stretch. It's all the small talk anyone he knows seems able to make.

“Well.” Enjolras doesn't sound very happy about that. “They seemed to like me, most of the places. How about yours?”

“Fair to middling.” Grantaire straightens and rolls his shoulders. “Might get offers from Portland and Seattle. Might take Seattle up. Le Gros says I should wait and see who the opera can shake out of the woodwork, and I'll bet Lamarque said pretty much the same thing to you.”

Enjolras steps away from the wall. “He did. I don't know. Some of the offerings are tempting, I have to admit.”

“Don't tell me the Met offered, I would have to cry if the Met offered.”

“The Met doesn't take on unknowns from college, R.” Normally, Grantaire sets up the sound, but today Enjolras is the one to start hooking up the speakers. “No official offers yet, and as you said, I'm not making any decisions yet.”

“You're going to have the luxury of a few hundred offers you don't even want, aren't you?” Enjolras finishes setting up the music. “The big number first?” That gets him a nod, although Enjolras is frowning, maybe because of what Grantaire said. “Unless you do want them,” he says, because that's probably not the problem, but it's worth saying. “I mean, I know you've got big plans, but no one's going to mind if you take a few years to perform first.”

Enjolras shrugs, which may in fact be a first. “I don't have to decide on anything quite yet.”

“None of us do. And hey, maybe I'll wow the dance world with my Puck and I'll get a million offers and dance until I inevitably fuck up a tendon or get arthritis.”

“You're good,” says Enjolras, like it's a fact, and maybe it is (Grantaire knows he's good, he just also knows he isn't a classically handsome dancer with all the right proportions, and he's used to that counting a lot). “You should get plenty of offers from Puck.”

Grantaire clears his throat. “Not if we don't practice. Shall we?”

Enjolras presses play and goes for his mark, already humming his way through the recitative, getting them both ready for when the beat comes in. There's a notch between his brows, a not-quite-scowl Grantaire can't explain and doesn't want to probe too deep to figure out, but it smooths out when the familiar motions start.

Grantaire thought through his steps in several hotel rooms, spent most of the night on New Year's Eve running through his steps as well as he could with hotel furniture in the way (interrupted only by midnight phone calls first from Floréal and then the collective one from Joly and Musichetta and Bossuet, who were in Chicago for one of Musichetta's auditions). It's still a little rusty, after nearly a month of not doing it together, but Grantaire does his best, and only overcorrects for Enjolras's too-gentle partnering once, and Enjolras only takes him from the wrong point in the circle once, so it could have gone much worse.

“You can't be afraid to really grab me,” says Grantaire when the music stops, already getting to his feet. “It's not like stage combat, everything has to connect, the physics of it all works that way. I'm not going to get close enough or far enough if you don't push and pull me with enough force, that's kind of the point of partnering. Like, don't throw me around, that's advanced level, but you don't have to be afraid to touch me.”

Enjolras frowns and then nods, like he's assimilating the information. “As long as you make sure I know if I'm correcting too hard in the other direction, or gripping wrong, or something.”

“If I were a worse man, I would have so many things to say about your grip, but yeah, I'll let you know. I don't want anyone to dislocate something, or anything else dire and medical, which is the worst-case scenario. Not that I think we'll get there.”

“Comforting.” A smile breaks through, though, so Grantaire calls it a win. “Want to do it again? We're not going to have much more time for private practice.”

“We can set up times if you want, half my credits for the semester are independent study, so I'm fairly high on free time.”

Enjolras nods. “That would be good. Are you coming to the sing-through on Friday?”

“Yeah, should be fun, plus it will be the one time all semester when I get to sit back and relax when I have to attend rehearsal. Musichetta has been singing pretty much non-stop for the past three days and Joly and Bossuet apparently practiced their duet all break and are keeping it all hush-hush, so I'll look forward to hearing that.”

“Those three will have to get together with Courfeyrac and Cosette and sometimes Éponine, they all have a lot of music together. I'm mostly with you or Musichetta.”

“You'll all be singing yourselves hoarse all semester.”

“And you'll be dancing yourself sore.”

“No kidding.” Grantaire shakes out his arms. “Let's do that again, and then move on to the other parts we've choreographed. No use wasting time.”

Enjolras goes from light to serious in under a second, and Grantaire centers himself and doesn't try to make him smile again because that's not what they're there for, and he's promised Musichetta and Floréal and tacitly promised to most of the rest of his friends that things won't get bad, not when he and Enjolras have to work together so much. “Well then, we won't waste it,” Enjolras says, all professional, and goes back to his mark. “From the recitative again?”

“Once more with feeling,” Grantaire agrees, and decides it's his turn to start the music.

*

Grantaire slips into the sing-through on Friday afternoon about two minutes before it starts, when Marius is setting up at the piano with the score and the rest of the Theory group and most of the music professors are finding themselves seats. Combeferre is front and center, a score in one hand and a baton in the other, holding on a little tighter than he probably thinks he is.

“Come sit,” says Bahorel when he catches sight of Grantaire. “I don't think I've seen you yet this semester, man, how are things?”

“Full of senior year paperwork, unfortunately, but I'm getting a lot of dancing in. What did you do over the break?”

Bahorel beams. “Joy flew me out to Singapore for a concert she was headlining, I think I'm going to like being a concert pianist's kept man. I even got to turn her pages.”

“What, no auditions for you?”

“Fuck that, man, I'd way rather be a kept man than a drummer. Maybe I'll try for a philharmonic or two, but hey, if she'll drag me around to turn pages for her I will definitely go with her.”

Grantaire laughs. “More power to you.”

Up at the front of the room, Combeferre has set up a music stand and opened his score on it, and he taps his baton against the stand, which every music student Grantaire has ever met has a Pavlovian response to. Even Marius, in the middle of setting up his music to his satisfaction, straightens where he sits. “Hello everyone, thank you for coming. We should get started, because this is going to take time and I don't want to have to keep everyone here through dinner.” He turns to Marius. “Overture?”

“Give me the count,” says Marius, and they launch in.

Grantaire looks around the room as Marius goes through the overture, blazing on bravely through his occasional mistakes. He recognizes some of the themes he dances to, and vaguely the sounds of songs he only listened to once or twice to get the feel of the show, and catches a look from Enjolras when the theme from their big number appears for a few moments.

At the end of the overture, everyone applauds, making Marius grin and Combeferre breathe out like he'd been waiting for something. “Let's continue,” he says, as steady as ever.

Grantaire closes his eyes so he can listen better. It starts with Titania's attendants, in the form of Joly, Bossuet, Courfeyrac, and Cosette, catching the audience up singing a great quartet about how much Oberon sucks, putting a spin on Shakespeare so everyone is reminded exactly what Oberon did to his wife with no one batting an eye about it. Musichetta comes in after that, with a badass aria that sopranos everywhere are going to be thanking Combeferre for in a few years, and then Enjolras and Éponine come in.

Éponine starts, as the page boy all resentful that Titania gave her away under the influence and wanting to go back to her part of the court, and then Enjolras takes over, being a shitty smug husband, and Grantaire has to close his eyes.

Everyone kind of assumes, and Grantaire lets them assume, that his terrible crush on Enjolras was born out of Enjolras being a ridiculously beautiful human being (which Grantaire won't dispute) and Grantaire getting turned on by arguing with people (which is also probably fair). He was certainly attracted to him right off, but Grantaire is a dancer. He's used to beautiful people. The terrible crush actually started the day Grantaire showed up to Theory One early and walked by a practice room and heard Enjolras sing for the first time. It was just “Loch Lomond,” the old tenor standby, and Grantaire stood outside the practice room like a creep the whole time and then walked away and skipped class because he didn't want to be in the same room as Enjolras. He hasn't been able to find a recording of the song that he likes since, though he's tried several times.

It's not like he hasn't heard Enjolras sing solo in the year since he decided he was done, or even under his breath in their dance rehearsals, but it's still a shock every time, listening to his voice. He never hits a wrong note, never uses too much vibrato in the way that drives Grantaire up the wall with so many opera singers, always sings like he really wants to be singing, like he loves it. Grantaire keeps his hands clenched in his lap and his eyes closed while Musichetta and Enjolras have their first duet, and only opens his eyes when Bahorel puts a hand on his forearm and squeezes.

“You okay?” says Bahorel, quiet while Musichetta hits a piercingly high note with Enjolras singing under her, the dramatic end to their first duet, and Grantaire nods. He doesn't need everyone looking at him, and he'll be fine now. It's just been a while since he was at close quarters with Enjolras while he sang.

The opera keeps going, Titania formulating her rebellion, her attendants and Éponine swearing themselves to her side. Joly and Bossuet have their duet, one which no one else is ever going to be able to replicate properly, since half the fun of it is that they have pretty much exactly the same speaking and singing voice (which is really handy for when one of them is too busy to talk to their parents for a week, they just hand the phone off), and after that comes the big anti-rebellion number, Grantaire's first big dance.

When Enjolras stands up to sing it, he leaves Marius waiting on the first chord of the recitative and turns to the back of the room to raise his eyebrows at Grantaire. “Are you joining me?”

“Not enough space in here,” he says, which is very true. “We'll have to wow everyone later.”

Enjolras nods and launches into his recitative when Marius plays his chord again. The whole piece seems bigger, more dramatic, now that Enjolras is singing instead of intermittently humming along. At the end, he gets applause and a smile from Combeferre, who's mostly been staring down at his score while conducting and occasionally making notes with one hand while keeping the beat with the other.

Everything goes along at a good clip from there, the rebellion being planned, Oberon pretending he doesn't know what's going on, Éponine and her anger at both sides in her few features, and Bahorel making his dramatic appearance as Bottom, called upon to serve Titania and playing a key role in the eventual revolution, singing down at the bottom of his range and professing his eternal devotion to Titania (and her cause). The whole thing takes two and a half hours, despite skipping the entr'acte because Marius won't really be called upon to play it during rehearsals, and by the end everyone is exhausted and happy.

“I'll get in touch about schedules,” Combeferre says when they finish and the applause from the people there mostly to spectate has died down. “We're going to be building the sets as quickly as possible to get everyone used to how much stage space we'll really have, but please have patience while we work that out. Grantaire, hopefully you and Floréal can show us what you have, and you and Enjolras too, everyone's been looking forward to it.”

Grantaire nods. “Of course, I'll put Floréal in the loop about scheduling things. And Musichetta, you and I still need to figure a few things out, as well as me and Titania's attendants.”

Combeferre smiles at him. “I'll look forward to seeing everything you come up with. Everyone, expect e-mails and texts.”

Fantine stands up. “And your voice teachers will be working with all of you on what you're doing, so be prepared for that.”

“We're all living and breathing this opera, never fear,” says Courfeyrac, and that's the cue for it all to break up into smaller conversations and everyone congratulating everyone else on their performances.

Bahorel is immediately swept into conversation with Jehan on homework they have to do for the science gen ed they both saved for their last semester and Grantaire hangs to the back of the room, since he has to wait for his roommates and all of them are busy.

Enjolras, to his surprise, excuses himself from talking to Dr. Lamarque and comes back specifically to talk to Grantaire, judging by the way he only says quick hellos to everyone else as he passes. “How was it hearing it with vocals?” he asks.

“Cool.” Grantaire puts his hands in his pockets, because he needs to do something with them and that seems like the easiest course. “I hope Combeferre is planning to get this thing filmed so he can put it up on YouTube and make everyone involved internet-famous. I feel like it would be a lot easier for all of us to get jobs.”

“I'll make sure he takes that under advisement. Éponine knows a New Media major, right? Would he be willing to do a project, make sure it's a good recording?”

“I'm pretty sure Montparnasse would do anything for credit.”

Enjolras smiles. “That works, then. I'll talk to Éponine and see if she's willing to ask him.” Grantaire nods, and Enjolras doesn't go anywhere, and it takes about five seconds before he starts a little and says “Combeferre says he wants the two of us on the stage next week sometime, to figure out the spacing, he has the places where levels will be marked off with tap so at least we'll know where they are even if we can't use them. When are you free?”

“Probably more often than you are, so name a time and we'll see if I can do it.”

“Wednesday morning? I'll have a lot of afternoon singing rehearsals, and I believe Combeferre has that time free as well.”

“Wednesday morning is fine, I'll pencil it in. Or type it in, does anyone actually have paper calendars anymore?”

“I do,” says Enjolras, because of course he does.

“Well, either way, penciling or typing, Wednesday morning, I'll see you then.”

Enjolras nods, and then continues to stand there, not like he's waiting for some vital piece of information, but more like he's perfectly content to stand there and smile out over the room, all of their friends talking excitedly about the opera or about other things. Like they're actually friends now, and that's good. Grantaire will call it a win, because calling it anything else is going to end badly.

“R,” Bossuet calls a few minutes later, just when Grantaire is thinking about making an excuse, “come over here and settle an argument for us.”

It's anyone's guess what Bossuet and Courfeyrac are arguing about, considering they're both grinning. Grantaire turns to Enjolras. “I'll see you Wednesday.”

Enjolras nods, already distracted, looking off to where Combeferre and Éponine are off to one-side having a low-voiced conversation that involves Éponine frowning a lot. That is probably not a good thing, but it's also not Grantaire's business. Enjolras can step in if stepping in is required. “I'll look forward to it,” he says, and Grantaire gives him a wave and heads across the room.

*

“For about the hundredth time, you don't actually have to come with me.”

Floréal keeps her arm firmly where it is, around his waist like he's a flight risk (as if she wouldn't track him down instantly, since she knows where he's going). “I know I don't, but I'm just awesome that way.” When he sighs, she pinches his side. “R, I both want to see you dance on the stage and think you are a dumbass, and the combination thereof means that I'm going to be chaperoning your meetings until I decide Combeferre is worthy of it.”

Grantaire is not going to be able to say anything that will convince her that his heart is safe in Enjolras's vicinity these days, so he keeps further protestations to himself. He knows that after a while they just start sounding like denial, even if they aren't. “Combeferre is worthy of pretty much everything,” he says, because that's true. “Combeferre is possibly superhuman and definitely worthy of being a Victorian chaperone.”

“Good, I'll look forward to getting to know him better.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes and smiles as he lets them through the door to the theater, which is unlocked, probably Combeferre's doing. It's weird being inside a performance space that's obviously not performance ready, with only a few of them in there. Combeferre and Enjolras are already on stage, Combeferre to one side with a keyboard set up and Enjolras prowling around inspecting the floor, probably seeing where different levels are supposed to go. “Come on in,” Combeferre calls when the door shuts behind them, echoing in the room.

“Already in.” Floréal finally lets him go and he jogs down to the front of the room and the stage, hopping up in a well-practiced move because sometimes he likes showing off. “Floréal came with me, I hope you don't mind.”

“Not at all.” Combeferre abandons his keyboard and goes over to the edge of the stage to shake her hand. “I know we've met, but I'll look forward to getting to know you better. If you have time once Enjolras and Grantaire finish, maybe we can see what you and Grantaire have of your dance afterwards.”

Floréal smiles up at him, the little charming dangerous smile that wraps people right around her fingers (Grantaire's allowed to say it, he's been wrapped since freshman year when the best ballerina in the program told him to partner her halfway through their first semester of ballet). “Of course, I'd be glad to. I just haven't seen them do this for a while, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it pans out.”

Enjolras clears his throat. “Do you need to warm up, R?”

“No, stretched and everything at home, so I'm set to start when you are. Are you singing today?”

“I need to get used to singing and dancing at the same time,” says Enjolras, and Grantaire decides to be well-behaved and not scoff at what Enjolras calls dancing, since he's the one who choreographed it.

Combeferre returns to his keyboard, and Floréal sits in the front row, legs daintily crossed, keeping her eyes on them. “Let's get started,” says Combeferre once he's settled. “R, do you want to look at the markings on the stage?”

“Right, yeah, of course.” He walks the stage, the clear parts and the parts marked off with varying colors of tape, presumably for different heights. His big duet with Enjolras mostly stays on one level, so he doesn't pay too much attention to those, but he maps out the irregularities, how much space he'll probably need to give around them, how it compares with the size of the dance studio. It's not as far off as he was fearing, but the stage is wider and, with the structures to be built, not quite as deep. “I think we can do it. Enjolras, keep a close eye on where I am, we're pretending that about a six-inch border away from that tape is lava, so do not stick me in the middle of it.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Of course, the floor is lava.”

“Which you let Courfeyrac talk you into at home last semester,” says Combeferre, grinning when Enjolras turns to give him a betrayed look. Grantaire stifles his laugh. “Don't pretend you have dignity.”

“Find a mark,” says Grantaire, because he doesn't want to wait around for Enjolras to defend his dignity, and Enjolras rolls his eyes again, maybe at Grantaire ordering him around, but he goes, finding a spot pretty much analogous to where he usually is, and Grantaire positions himself accordingly.

Combeferre, after a second checking on where they are, hits the first chord. Grantaire waits, and a second later there's Enjolras's voice, clear and strong, not morning-rough at all. He moves (he'll have to start up on one of the levels when they're actually built, that would probably make for a more dramatic entrance), and it's easy to fall into the steps from there, if distracting to have Enjolras actually singing while he does it.

It feels more like a performance, with people there (even if “people” just turn out to be their respective best friends), with the cavernous space of the theater out there instead of the safe wall of the studio, but Grantaire ignores that as best he can and sticks to the steps. Since most of his steps depend more on where Enjolras is standing than on the size of the stage, he does a decent job of adapting, if he does say so himself. They do get tangled once, when Enjolras goes too close to stage right in the middle of a dramatic passage and Grantaire has to swing closer to him than usual to avoid running into a tape outline, but they fix it fast enough that Combeferre's playing barely hiccups.

When they finish, Enjolras's last note still dying off out in the cheap seats somewhere, Grantaire breaks pose and gets to his feet. “You're doing a lot better at actually partnering me,” he tells Enjolras, and turns to Combeferre. “How does that look to you?”

“Good, though I'm not an expert. I may ask you about using levels when we get them put in—they're hoping to start construction on the basic structures soon, and I'll show you my plans about their heights after rehearsal, R.”

Grantaire nods. “I'm all for using the levels, I've got big plans for them for my dance with Floréal and some other spots, but if I'm going in circles around Enjolras for most of this number, none of these spots look wide enough for me to do that up in the air.”

“There's the spot about three quarters of the way through when you break that a little to show off that you can play double agent. Is it feasible to jump up a level to do it there?”

“I mean, it will depend what levels are close, but I can't see why not. Might take some quick transitions, so I can't promise anything until I actually see what it will look like, but it's worth a shot.” He looks out at the audience. “Floréal? What do you think?”

“I think if there are levels, it's probably best to use them,” she says, and stands up. “What about if he went up a level at one point and you kind of tried to continue your orbit on the ground? There will be steps up to the lowest level, right? Also, Grantaire, those style transitions were messy, you need sharper delineation for this.”

“Yes, there will be steps,” says Combeferre, smiling at her. “Not everyone can jump as easily as you and Grantaire can. And that's not a bad idea, but none of this is actionable until we actually have the levels built. We'll keep it in mind, though. Enjolras, do you mind doing it again from 'I see it clear'? I'm thinking we can push the tempo a little there, up the intensity, but I don't want to do it if it's going to throw you two off.”

Floréal sits down, and Grantaire smiles at her quickly before he goes back to his rehearsal. It's almost noon by the time they've finished going through all the choreography Grantaire and Enjolras have done together, as well as what Grantaire and Floréal have, once she's warmed up a little bit, although that's still a little sketchier, waiting on set design because they intend to use it to its fullest.

“You can feel free to join us for lunch,” says Enjolras when Combeferre calls them to a halt. “We're just going to the Union, Musichetta and I are meeting this afternoon to work on our duets.”

Grantaire shakes his head, hopping off the stage. He needs a change of clothes, after all the dancing he's been doing, and Floréal, grimacing at her sweaty t-shirt and probably not looking forward to the cold air outside any more than he is, probably regrets not having her dance bag with her. “I'm heading home, I think, let Musichetta know I walked, would you? Floréal and I can run some things at home.”

Enjolras nods. “Of course.”

“From here on,” says Combeferre, giving a look around them all that Grantaire thinks he probably knows more about what's going on than the rest of them combined, “there's an online calendar I'm sharing everyone into, you can block off times when you can't come, schedule meet-ups with people you need to work with, and I'll find the times when the most people are free for regular rehearsals, figuring out blocking. R, I'll get some structures built for you as soon as I can, I promise.”

“Let me know if you need help with building them,” he says, shrugging his coat on. “I've helped build a thing or two, I'm not bad with a hammer and saw.”

“I'll take you up on that,” says Combeferre, and starts packing up his music, leaving Grantaire to give Floréal a hand off the stage and wave to them both before heading out.

“What's your verdict?” he asks when they're outside, Floréal's arm around him, but more gently. “Do I still need a chaperone?”

“It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be,” she says, and doesn't elaborate further.

**February**

“Baby, you need to get some sleep.”

The fact that Grantaire starts at the sound of Musichetta's voice is probably pretty telling, since she's sitting out in the middle of everything on the couch, book open on her lap. His initial retort being swallowed by a yawn is probably even more telling. “I maybe need to get some sleep,” he admits when her eyebrows go up, because Musichetta is psychic.

“I've hardly seen you in days, and the boys say the same. We need to do an apartment dinner, just the four of us. You know how they pine without you.”

“That sounds great. Someone else gets to cook.”

“Of course.” Musichetta beckons him, and he goes over to the couch even though he has a strong suspicion that he's going to end up falling asleep if he sits down for more than three minutes. And sleep is good, but he'd like to do it in his bed, and after he's finished e-mailing Combeferre about their second set-building day. “I'll make my special alfredo, and make Bossuet take out his mandolin and serenade us.”

“I don't know why he couldn't play the ukulele like a normal hipster.”

Musichetta laughs and ruffles his hair, then cuddles into him and leans her cheek against the top of his head. “You're okay? I think it's just that you're obsessed with the opera, which I respect, but I want to make sure there's not some horrifying psychological reason for it.”

“Le Gros isn't giving me a solo in the spring showcase,” Grantaire says, leaning into her. “Just a little feature in group numbers, because I'm busy as fuck with the opera. Which, I mean, I want to be, but I was sort of in denial about it before and Le Gros released the official list of acts for it yesterday. So now I have to make sure the opera is perfect so the few dance representatives he can talk into staying for both things are impressed.”

“You're great, R, you blew us all away the other day.” She kisses his hair. “I'm sorry about the showcase, though. That's shitty, for your last semester.”

He doesn't shrug, mostly because he's too tired to. “Pretty much, yeah. But it's more attention for the opera.”

“Well, the opera thanks you for it. But you're allowed to be disappointed, you know that, right? Nobody's going to think you're any less committed because you've got doubts.”

“Less doubts. More regrets. Musichetta, I want to dance, and people get tapped for auditions after the showcase, they always do.”

She sighs, hand squeezing his leg. “You haven't heard from Portland or Seattle?”

“No. And I don't think that no news is very good news. It means that they're waiting to see if they can find someone better.”

“Not possible, baby.”

“Oh hey, are we cuddling R?” says Bossuet through a yawn, standing in their bedroom door. “I heard people talking, wondered if you two were up.” He flops on Grantaire's other side, which is why Grantaire is glad they found the world's biggest and ugliest couch at a yard sale over the summer when they were searching for furniture.

“Is Joly up too?” Musichetta asks, talking over Grantaire's head while he finds a way to lean on both of them at once, warmer than he's been in days with a February cold snap in high gear and the heat turned down low. “I got up to get a drink and saw R's light on, so I stayed up to catch him and hopefully tempt him into sleeping.”

“He fell asleep with his headphones on, he won't wake up unless we wake him.” Bossuet says it around a yawn and puts his arm around Grantaire. “Do you want us to sing you a lullaby, R?”

Grantaire has a feeling they're not going to let him off the couch until morning, so he just settles more easily into them. “Sure.”

Musichetta starts up a nonsense song about people dancing their feet off and then settling down to sleep because Musichetta is a firm believer in the kinds of traditional lullabies that give adults nightmares but soothe kids perfectly well. After a verse or two, Bossuet chimes in with a counterpoint that seems to be about taco fillings.

Grantaire drifts off to sleep sometime around when Musichetta's tune veers off into the people of the town inventing wheelchairs and hoverchairs for the express purposes of dancing, and he wakes up in the morning in a cocoon of limbs and blankets with a crick in his neck and Joly curled up over all their laps. He wakes them up long enough to get off the couch and goes to make pancakes, since they deserve that at the very least, and tells Musichetta when she gets up that she should make a short film out of her lullaby.

*

Floréal lets him get away with fifteen minutes of intense work on what Le Gros has taught them of their routine for their Modern group dance, an Ailey-inspired piece Grantaire is loving so far (and is glad he gets a feature in, even if he still stupidly resents not having a whole solo or duet), before she sits down cross-legged on the floor and gives him an expectant look. “Are you going to tell me what's up?”

“Already told you,” he says. “And already told you it's stupid, because Le Gros warned me at the beginning of the semester and I should have known it was coming halfway through last semester, about the time this choreography thing ate my life.”

“New York never called me back,” she says, patting the floor next to her, where he sits because he knows when resistance is futile. “Toronto did, but none of the New York companies have so far. So I get what the showcase means, you know? But I promise, if I thought no dance people were going to get an eye on you for choreography for the opera, I would tell you to drop it tomorrow.”

“I couldn't at this point.”

“Don't want to disappoint Combeferre? I get that, he's got the whole dad thing going on.”

“That, and I'm actually liking it. Don't know if it will actually do shit for my career, but it's interesting. I like the work.”

“I hope so, given how much studio time you have booked. Take a break once in a while, okay?”

Grantaire nods. “Musichetta and Bossuet made sure I was sleeping the other night, and I have a lot of lunches with Combeferre and Musichetta and sometimes Enjolras before rehearsals. I'm not that worn out.”

Floréal frowns, but she stands up. “If you're sure.”

He takes the hand she offers him and gets upright again, groaning at the stretch in his muscles. “I'm always sure,” he says, and goes back to place to start the dance over.

*

The stage is starting to take shape, some rough plywood platforms and steps starting to creep across the stage. “Too many splinters to dance on, still,” says Combeferre when he catches Grantaire looking before the first full-cast rehearsal. “You'll have to just sketch out your steps.”

“You haven't texted about me helping with the set, you should.”

“No, I shouldn't.” Grantaire turns to him and raises his eyebrows. “Joly told me you're hardly sleeping for all the dancing you're doing, you don't need this on top of it. We have plenty of people helping.”

Combeferre, now that Grantaire is looking, looks just as tired as he feels, shoulders slumped and glasses smudged and a swathe of missed stubble under his jaw. “You should get a rest too.”

“I'll get a rest when I get a composing fellowship.”

“And then you won't get a rest at all. We can't have our director burning out.”

“Or our choreographer.” Combeferre sighs when Grantaire just crosses his arms in response to that. “I'll get a full night's rest tonight, promise. Will you promise too, so Joly stops fretting at me?”

Joly is a traitor. “Fine, fine.” Courfeyrac, up at the front of the room trying to do something with Cosette and Bossuet, calls Combeferre's name, and Grantaire waves him off. “Go see to your directing, I'm looking forward to seeing how the first act is coming together so far.”

“Believe me, so am I,” says Combeferre, and goes.

Everyone but Éponine is milling around towards the front of the stage, so Grantaire goes to Éponine. If she doesn't want company, she'll just put on her headphones. She's unambiguous that way. When he gets to her, she nods at him briefly and then turns back to what she was doing, which is staring at the stage with a little frown on her face and tapping a finger restlessly against her knee. For a second, Grantaire thinks about telling her she's going to do great, since she did fine in the sing-through, but for all he knows, that's not the problem.

“Eventually,” Éponine says after nearly three minutes of total silence, “I am going to learn to not do things that I know are bad ideas from the start.”

She could mean the opera, or the old crush on Marius, or something completely different, but his answer is the same no matter what. “I'll let you know when I figure out how to keep from doing them.”

“Much appreciated.” She relaxes a little, though she's still frowning up at the stage, where Joly has joined the conversation between Titania's attendants and seems to be making some kind of attempt at a do-si-do with Cosette, gesticulating as he goes. Combeferre has his hand over his mouth with the overly-serious expression Grantaire has suspected for years actually covers up laughter. Enjolras, with Marius and Bahorel by the keyboard, is distracted from whatever he was doing peering over Marius's shoulder, grinning at his friends because he's sort of a sap. “I've got a date for my recital,” she says after a few seconds. “Want me to text you the details?”

“Absolutely. You should text everyone the details, we can all take a night off from singing about Shakespeare and cheer you on.”

“Maybe.” He's not sure why she sounds so dubious about that, much less why she's still staring at the stage like she's playing one of those Magic Eye things waiting for a picture to make itself clear. “But you're definitely allowed, you won't critique my technique in your head.”

“Not unless you do choreography,” he agrees.

“Not if you paid me.”

“Grantaire,” Combeferre calls from the stage, squinting out at the audience even though the bright stage lights aren't even on. Grantaire is going to suggest that they have a rehearsal that's actually secretly naptime. He and Combeferre definitely need it, and it seems like Éponine does too. “They want your opinion on having a very simple dance.”

Grantaire stands up and squeezes Éponine's shoulder before he leaves her to walk up to the stage and climb up. “I hope the emphasis there is on the 'very.' What kind of dance?”

“The most coherent potential description I've had so far is 'like a Maypole dance, but not,'” says Combeferre.

“I can probably work with that,” says Grantaire, takes a deep breath, and starts figuring it out.

Rehearsal lasts a brutal three and a half hours before Combeferre calls it done. They're all walking like zombies by the end, after putting together blocking, putting it together again, redoing songs when Combeferre doesn't like what they're doing. Grantaire, when he isn't dancing, is left to lurk at the back of the stage, following everyone else's lead, but he finds himself pulled into blocking as well, helping Combeferre choose which side of the stage to use, who should be on what level at what time. After the first few times, he gives in and does what Le Gros does when he's impatient, just moves them into place, even when he has to do it for Enjolras.

Combeferre catches him again as he's winding a scarf around his neck and checking his phone for mixed texts, since Floréal isn't really featured until the second act and didn't have to come. “Thank you, R, you've been an incredible help today. Any rehearsal where you can come, you would be welcome.”

“I'll make it whenever I can,” he promises, since that's already true anyway.

Cosette captures Combeferre's attention, so he wanders out of the theater and finds Enjolras in the hall outside, wrapped up in his winter gear and frowning down at his phone while he types a text. “On your way out?” Enjolras asks when Grantaire passes him, like the answer to that isn't obvious.

“Yeah.” He stops and puts his hands in his pockets. “How are you feeling about the show?”

“Good.” Enjolras smiles, finally focuses on Grantaire instead of his phone. “Do you think we can pull it off?”

Grantaire shrugs. “I think we can do it,” he says, and since Enjolras doesn't have anything more to say to that, he starts walking again.

*

_Entrechat, entrechat_ , a pause to fix his turnout, _entrechat_ again.

“Fuck,” says Grantaire, and closes his eyes to lean against the mirrored wall even though it will leave a smudge he'll have to clean off before he leaves. He almost brains himself a second later when there's a knock on the door, and gives serious thought to pretending there's no one in there, but then if it's someone not sure if the room is in use, they'll come in. “Occupied,” he calls instead, like it's a public restroom instead of a dance studio.

The door opens anyway, and he's prepared for Floréal but, when he turns around, finds Enjolras standing in the door instead, frown already in place. “Are you okay?”

“I could swear we don't have a practice session scheduled.” Grantaire takes a deep breath and straightens himself up. “Did I leave something out of my calendar? I've been sort of scattered this week.”

“No.” Enjolras makes a face Grantaire can't decipher and then shuts the door behind him. “Sorry, I just got in the habit of stopping by when I pass the dance building to see if you're in and wanted to practice. I should remember you have other things to do.”

“Or you could text. What if you'd come by and I wasn't here?”

Enjolras shrugs like that doesn't matter. “Then I'd leave. I've done it before.”

Grantaire can't find a way to answer that, so he just falls into a stretch, and winces and hisses when his calf cramps halfway through the motion. Everything aches, and he's not totally sure how long he's been practicing, but he suspects his time is almost up. “I don't think I have the studio for much longer, so I don't know how much useful work we'll get in.”

“Are you okay?”

“You asked that already, and I'm fine, you've seen me cramp up before.” The sharp pain finally leaches out of the muscle, leaving him just sore, but he's able to stretch some of that out of it. He's going to have to treat himself to a massage one of these days, it's been too long since he made the time.

“You weren't cramping up when I came in and asked the question the first time, actually. You look upset.”

“Congratulations, you figured out I was evading your question.”

Enjolras blinks, brought up short by that, and then shakes his head, taking a step or two further into the room. “Obviously I'm not forcing you to confide in me, but you look like you've been at this for a while and you don't look like it's helped. Usually it does.”

“Not any of your business.”

“I know it isn't, R, and I'm sorry, I won't ask if you don't want me to.” Enjolras sounds more annoyed than apologetic, but at least that's familiar, and it's even more familiar when Enjolras goes on, the annoyance turning into anger. “I just thought I'd help, because clearly what you're doing isn't doing you any good.”

“You can say that again.” Grantaire sighs, because Enjolras is still watching him, not making excuses to leave or yelling at him or doing anything Grantaire knows how to respond to. “Just a shitty week. Everyone has those.”

“What's making it shitty?”

He wants to sit down, lay on the nice cool floor until the next dancer comes in to have their scheduled practice, but Enjolras's presence kind of gets in the way of that. “Applied for a few companies Le Gros recommended, got rejections from all of them without even an audition. Plus a formal rejection from one of the places I auditioned for over break. Everyone gets a lot of rejection, but it still sucks.” And it sucks extra because he hasn't even told Floréal yet, with her stressed enough as it is over trying to apply for every New York company there is. Meanwhile, he's giving too-serious thought to the cruise ship links he bookmarked, the tentative e-mails he sent, and the thought of doing that isn't a pleasant one.

“That's stupid of them,” says Enjolras, his frown getting cloudier, and Grantaire's startled out of some of his self-pity, because the most he was expecting was a noncommittal “I'm sorry” or “that must be difficult.” “You're an incredible dancer with choreography experience that spans a whole opera, why wouldn't they want you?”

“No spots, wrong kind of dancing, or I just don't fit whatever type they're looking for. There's a lot of that.”

“The judging based off appearances in the arts is reprehensible.”

“Fuck you, you'll never have to deal with it.” Grantaire surprises himself with his own venom and ducks his head. “Sorry.”

“I'm trying to help, but if you're going to insist on self-pity I can leave.”

“I don't know why you're here in the first place.”

“Like I said. I came to see if you wanted to practice.”

Grantaire goes towards his bag and knows he's limping, which is humiliating with Enjolras standing there watching and knowing what's up. “I've got to call it a day.”

“Of course you do,” says Enjolras instantly, and when Grantaire dares a look over he looks more concerned than annoyed. That's new, and Grantaire isn't totally sure he likes it. “I wouldn't have asked you to rehearse pretty much the second I saw you today. You need some rest.”

“I know, don't we all? I'm pretty sure Combeferre hasn't seen his bed in weeks.”

“I make Combeferre sleep, and you need it more than any of us. You're going to hurt yourself.”

Grantaire sighs and doesn't brace his back as he bends to put on his shoes because that's just going to prove Enjolras's point. “I know how far I can push myself.” And he's at the outer edge of those limits, but he's not quite there.

“Clearly you don't. Let's have dinner.”

For a second, Grantaire starts winding up a retort for the answer he thought he would get, which would work with the first half of what Enjolras said to him, and then he registers the second half. “I'm not following.”

“Dinner, my treat. The Chinese buffet right off campus?”

Floréal and all three of his roommates would call it a bad idea, with varying degrees of gentleness. Grantaire feels a little sick, definitely not hungry, but he knows his body well enough to know that he'll be starving the second he gets a whiff of food. “You don't have to.”

“Someone does.” Enjolras jerks his head at the door. “Come on. My car is parked in the nearest lot, we can drive there, it's too cold for you to be out walking.”

Grantaire, baffled, trails after Enjolras when he starts moving. “I'm not some kind of delicate flower.”

“Quick changes of temperature can't be good for your muscles when they're already sore, though.” Enjolras puts his gloves and hat on while he walks, and Grantaire struggles into his coat, nodding at a few of the underclassmen getting out of classes as he goes. They're all appropriately in awe of him, anyway, even if he ends up dancing to Barry Manilow on a boat and doing barre work in the break room. He'd say that out loud to his roommates if he wanted comfort or to Floréal if he wanted to be told to get his head out of his ass, but he doesn't know how Enjolras would respond, so he keeps it to himself.

The ride to the restaurant is both short and completely, awkwardly silent. For a musician, Enjolras has always liked silence, isn't the type to fiddle with the radio all the time, and it leaves Grantaire tapping his fingers restlessly against his knee until they park. “You don't have to pay for me,” Grantaire says when Enjolras kills the engine, and Enjolras pauses, probably looking over at him, but Grantaire keeps staring out the windshield. “You've tempted me out to get food, that's the end of your responsibility to me.”

“Leave it, R, I'm paying. Call it my random act of kindness for the week.”

Grantaire turns to him just to make sure Enjolras can see him rolling his eyes. “Thing is, that's probably not even facetious, I'll bet you do that.”

“Combeferre and I made it a challenge last year and it carried through. Are you getting out?” Enjolras has his hand on the door handle, so Grantaire opens his door up and gets himself out of the car, groaning a little in the cold air that makes all his muscles seriously consider seizing. “And this doesn't really count,” Enjolras adds, pointing him towards the door like Grantaire doesn't know where it is. “Combeferre said doing things for our friends doesn't count, so this is just basic courtesy.”

That could be argued, but they're inside now, and Grantaire is giving serious thought to just going swimming in a tub of fried rice (he will shrink if he has to, to find a way to do it), so he shuts up about it. “Any preferences for seating?”

Enjolras smiles at him. “I'll find a table, you get your first plate. What do you want me to order you to drink?”

“I'm not six, Enjolras, I can wait and order my own water like a responsible adult.”

“I was not expecting water, but fine. Seriously, R, go. Well, hand me your coat first.”

Grantaire stares at him, but Enjolras definitely meant that, because he's got an impatient hand out and the waitress hovering nearby has a little smile on her face. After a second, he shucks off his gloves and coat and surrenders them, because that's apparently the only option. “Want me to grab you anything while you wait for our beverages?”

“I'll be all of two minutes. If they're close to out of crab rangoons, though, get me a few.”

Grantaire salutes. “If you say so.” It's busy but not too crowded in the restaurant, so it's easy to get a plate and wander around the buffet, ignoring the inevitable American food offerings that nearly every Chinese buffet of a certain size tends to have and dishing the better offerings on his plate instead. The restaurant does some seriously good lo mein, or at least seriously good by American standards. Joly mutters about his grandmother's cooking sometimes, but he's allowed.

Before he's finished, Enjolras is beside him, plate half full of crab rangoons and a grin on his face. “We have a table, the waitress is bringing our drinks, you should be able to recognize your coat whenever you decide your plate is full.”

Grantaire spoons some kind of vegetable matter in some kind of delicious-smelling brown sauce on his plate and, after eyeballing the architecture of the egg roll structure he built, decides that's probably enough for one go. “I'll see you at the table, then.”

He gives serious thought to being polite and having table manners and waiting for Enjolras to return before he digs in, but Enjolras probably won't care and his stomach is grumbling loud enough to be embarrassing, so as soon as he finds the table (two glasses of water set out on it), he starts eating. Enjolras, when he shows up two minutes later, smiles at him but doesn't seem to have anything else to say, because he just picks up a fork and spears a rangoon.

“Are you going to get another plate?” Enjolras asks when Grantaire finishes his first, embarrassingly quickly.

“Obviously. I'm careful with what I eat most times, but you don't come to a Chinese buffet unless you're going to stuff your face.”

“Of course.”

In the end, Grantaire eats through two full plates and one last small helping of lo mein, and Enjolras nearly as much, though half of that is crab rangoons. Grantaire doesn't bother to make conversation, and Enjolras doesn't either, so it's a fairly silent meal but not, to his surprise, awkwardly so. “I should get home,” he says when he finishes, leaning back against the booth wall and wondering idly if the staff will let him sleep there overnight. “I didn't tell anyone where I was going, Joly's probably worried I've been murdered at this point.”

“I'll drive you.”

Grantaire shakes his head. “I'm a lot better now, act of kindness complete and appreciated, but you are literally a two-minute drive from home and you'd have to go ten minutes out of your way to get me home. Buses are still running, I'll get one of those.”

“It's no trouble, R, seriously.” Enjolras frowns at him when Grantaire starts to argue. “I'm driving you home unless you text Musichetta and her car is still on campus.”

He shakes his head. “She was going to pick up some things for the apartment as of five, I told her I would get the bus, which I should still do.”

Enjolras finishes the last bite from his tray and finally picks up the bill that the waitress brought around the time they finished their second plates, tilting it away from Grantaire, rummaging in his wallet for some money. “It's seriously no trouble, Grantaire, I'll get you home.”

“I'll pay the tip.” He can do that much, anyway, to not feel like this whole evening is about Enjolras taking care of him, and Enjolras can't object, because Enjolras is a great believer in heavy tipping.

“Fine.” Between the two of them, they get money on the table, and then their coats on even while both of them grimace, overstuffed in the ways that buffets always seem to encourage. The waitress waves at them on their way out, and a minute later they're out in the cold night again. It's started snowing wetly, and Grantaire makes a face that Enjolras pounces on immediately. “You can't wait for a bus in this, and you certainly can't walk. I'm driving you.”

“If you insist. Though Combeferre really should give you special dispensation to let this be your act of kindness for the week.”

“Please stop that.” Enjolras unlocks his car and Grantaire gets in again, buckling up and settling his dance bag on his lap while Enjolras gets himself situated and starts the car. “Combeferre says the levels, or at least the basics of them, enough to walk on, should be finished next week. How much work do you think it will take to adapt it?”

“Some parts, a lot. Our number, less, just a few spots that will need some work. The part at the end will take more work, and my number with Floréal, and some other parts throughout, but your big villain number doesn't actually need that much more working.”

“We'll have to work out the kinks and then do it for everyone next week at Full-Cast Friday.” Enjolras's tone sours. “If you don't work yourself to a broken ankle by then.”

“I don't intend to do any such thing.”

“I don't think anyone intends to break their ankles,” says Enjolras, and Grantaire doesn't have any answers to that, so he leans his head against the window and watches the snow fall while Enjolras drives. This time, Enjolras hums a little to himself, a tune that sounds vaguely familiar but isn't from Combeferre's opera, which is pretty much the only music he can keep in his head right now.

When they get to the apartment, Grantaire sits up, shaking the stiffness out of his muscles and looking over at Enjolras to find a way to say thank you, or invite him in for one of Joly's cookies or something, something normal that friends do after evenings like this. In the end, “Thanks” is all that comes out.

“You're more than welcome.” Enjolras's hands flex on the steering wheel, and he turns to Grantaire, makes sure he has eye contact and then keeps it. “If they don't want you, Grantaire, they are _idiots_. Anyone—any company—would be lucky.”

Grantaire wishes he were hearing this a year and a half ago, when it would make him feel giddy instead of like he's been punched in the gut. He believes Enjolras means it, because Enjolras never says anything he doesn't mean, but that just makes it worse, makes it everything Floréal has been warning him against. “Let's hope someone gets that message,” he finally says when he trusts his voice, and winces at the way it wavers and the way Enjolras's mouth turns down, obviously noticing.

“Someone will.”

“Right.” He fumbles for the car door, taking the excuse to look away so he can find it, and opens it enough to let the cold air in, so he'll have to get out in just a few seconds. “Thanks. For the encouragement, and dinner, and everything.”

“Have a good night, R. Get some sleep.”

Grantaire escapes the car, probably rudely, and only doesn't run up to his apartment because his body doesn't allow it. He doesn't hear Enjolras drive away until he's managed to unlock the front door and get inside.

When he gets through his apartment door, the other three are all sprawled on the couch in their various studying positions, which means Joly is upside down and Bossuet is using his feet as a bookrest. All three of them look up in unnerving unison when he makes it through the door, Musichetta immediately frowning. “You've been out forever and you didn't text, tell me you weren't in the studio the whole time.”

“I went to dinner with Enjolras,” he says, looking away from their reactions, and drops his dance bag on the floor. “And now I'm going to sit on the floor and one of you can rub my back so I don't need a spine transplant before I'm thirty.”

Joly, their resident massage expert, rights himself. “Let's hope you don't need one, since they don't yet exist.” And then, with all the hesitation Grantaire really doesn't want to deal with, “Enjolras?”

All Grantaire can do is shrug, but apparently it's all he needs to do, because Joly beckons him over to sit in front of him, and a minute later Musichetta's hand is in his hair and Bossuet's foot is propped on his shoulder, and none of them feel the need to say anything more about it.

*

With the platforms constructed, the stage suddenly looks like a playground, and Grantaire grins at it when he comes in for the next full-cast rehearsal, an hour early so he can get used to the heights of the levels and start adapting some of his choreography.

“Doesn't it look great?” Combeferre says, coming in behind him and dropping his backpack in the back row of seats while Grantaire gets out of his shoes and socks. “We're going to use foam and paint and fake foliage, try and make it look like a rocky forest. We'll keep the tops flat, obviously.”

“Are they smooth enough to go barefoot on?”

“Feuilly went through with a big magnet, picked up all the spare staples and nails he could find, so it should be mostly safe. Bahorel walked all over them, so they should all be sturdy enough to hold you.” Combeferre smiles, and Grantaire takes that as his cue to head for the stage at a jog, jumping on and keeping the jog up until he can latch on to one of the medium-sized levels and pull himself up. Out in the theater, Combeferre laughs and raises his voice. “There are steps, you know.”

Grantaire moves to the middle of the platform, centers himself, and takes a second to do a pirouette. His form is a little wobbly, but the platform itself stays exactly where it should, not shaking too much or moving in a way that could mean breaking an ankle for him or Floréal. “Yeah, but steps aren't fun,” he calls back.

The highest level is about eight feet, and Grantaire spends a few minutes walking from level to level, pacing them out so he knows exactly where the edges are and just how big the step up or down to the next level is, since it's not all quite standard. When that's done, he lets himself get a little more daring, jumping around, skipping a level at one point even though it makes Combeferre, now at the keyboard, gasp and then scowl.

“Can you give me the double agent dance?” he calls down when he's sure he's not going to run into any places to trip. Floréal will have to learn the terrain for herself, so they won't be able to do their dance multi-level yet, but he wants to at least get a start on adapting it.

Combeferre starts after rustling his music around a little, and Grantaire starts on the ground, pretends to see Floréal above, and climbs up, chases an imaginary partner around for a few measures before starting to seduce her over to the other side, using every platform at least once before jumping down from one where she'll be at just the right height for him to grab her and swing her down to the stage beside him, where they can do their proper _pas_ , changing styles around, before he helps her up again for her exit, following after and pausing at the highest platform at the center of the back to do a perfect balletic pirouette to the last flourish of the piece.

Out in the theater, there's applause, and he squints down to find Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Cosette standing in the aisle towards the front. “How did that look from out there?” he calls down, going down a few levels before jumping to the ground because he doesn't want to tempt fate and break his ankles.

“You need to use stage left more,” says Cosette, coming forward to lean on the front of the stage as he goes over to them.

“It's steeper over there,” Courfeyrac points out, putting an arm around her.

“There's a little platform,” Grantaire says, looking up at it. “I can go up there or put her up there, one of us when we're doing all the turning in the middle, it would kind of give it a music-box-dancer vibe.”

Combeferre abandons the piano, since Courfeyrac and Cosette's arrival means that Marius can't be far behind, and thus the keyboard will be his. “Grantaire, can you talk to Floréal about a time when the two of you are free to come in here and figure that out? We shouldn't spend too much time on it this afternoon, with the full cast here.”

“Absolutely. We practice together a lot, easy enough to do it here for a day, we're already way ahead on learning the routine we're in for the showcase.” And she has a solo to learn for the showcase too, but she's at less than half the opera rehearsals he is, so she's got the time. “I'll put it on the calendar when we figure it out.”

“Please do.” Combeferre turns out to the audience at the sound of the door opening and smiles when Bahorel comes through with Joly and Marius on his heels. “I've got to talk to Bahorel, would you all excuse me?”

Everyone straggles in over the next ten minutes, and Grantaire spends most of the time in easy conversation with Courfeyrac about what they're going to do with their free time after the opera performance, ignoring the fact that they'll only have finals week left before graduation and what they'll do is probably panic about the future. Enjolras is nearby, cross-legged on the edge of the stage, but he doesn't seem inclined to participate in their conversation, and Grantaire leaves it. They haven't spoken since Grantaire got out of his car and it's probably wiser that way.

They only begin five minutes late, which is nearly a miracle for any group of artists, and Grantaire settles in to watch them run the blocking at the beginning, and the rudimentary dance Titania's attendants do. When the time starts for him to come in, he goes to the highest level (they'll need to build stairs going off stage, soon, so people can enter from there) and then goes down a few until he finds an edge where he can sit and dangle his legs while Enjolras and Musichetta have some heated musical dialogue around Éponine, after which Éponine and Musichetta exit and Enjolras begins his recitative.

When Enjolras sings Oberon's first line addressed directly to Puck, he drops easily from the platform and into a crouch not far from where Enjolras is standing, and only rises when Enjolras gestures him up, missing a note, probably surprised that Grantaire didn't warn him that he was going to be jumping down from above.

As the song goes on, it's fairly easy to adapt his choreography to the stage. Grantaire keeps to the lower levels, when he goes up, and when Enjolras goes up a few platforms on one side of the stage and strides across to the other as the song gets bigger, Grantaire abandons his circles to just follow Enjolras below, trying to keep him in sight as much as possible. It leaves him the chance to be alone at center stage when Oberon sings about Puck being a double agent, so he can show off the change in styles, and then gets them together again for the build to the end.

It's the best it's ever gone, despite the mistakes and hesitations needed to get things under control with the differences. By the end, Grantaire is keyed up and showing off, his turns sharp and fast, and Enjolras is singing like it's opening night and never once missing where Grantaire is in his rotation when they need to connect. He's mid-turn when the music is ending and Enjolras takes the cue flawlessly, grabbing his outstretched hand and letting Grantaire use it as a balance as he goes to his knees, leaving their hands linked.

Grantaire grins up at him for a second, breathing hard, and then remembers exactly what kind of position they're in and how many of their friends are watching, and he breaks pose, turns to the front row where Combeferre is sitting with his notebook in his lap, taking notes without looking at the paper. “How did that look? Do you want us to do it again?”

Enjolras lets his hand go, and a second later he is helping Grantaire up even though he doesn't really need the help. He does have to be more graceful about the last move in the future, though, that was hard on his knees. “I think we could use a part where we're both on the platforms together,” says Enjolras, directing it at Combeferre.

Combeferre looks between the two of them for a second, and then shakes his head. “We'll work on improvements later, that was actually really good. Shall we move on?”

Grantaire takes that as his cue to get off the stage, and Enjolras follows him off to sit in the audience until their next entrances. Éponine taps his shoulder in the wings, and he gestures Enjolras on. Enjolras frowns, but he goes, and Éponine waits about ten seconds before she speaks. “Do you have any idea what that was about?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” he lies.

She frowns out in the direction of the audience. “Yeah, that was what I thought. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an entrance.”

When Grantaire gets out to the audience, Enjolras has a space next to him, but so does Bahorel, and Grantaire goes for the safer option. Bahorel just claps him on the shoulder and proceeds to show him Joy's latest Instagram pictures from wherever she is these days, and Grantaire pays attention and looks at Enjolras as little as possible until he has to be on stage again.

**March**

“I'm going to tell you something you're going to hate.”

Grantaire groans the second Floréal gets the words out, because when she says that she means it and when it comes after a full-cast rehearsal, it's only worse. “If you're quitting, I am going to do something drastic.”

“Definitely not that.” She leans against his shoulder. Up on the stage, Joly and Bossuet are doing a post-rehearsal sweep, which mostly means that they're dueling with the brooms while Courfeyrac cheers them on. “I think you need to revamp some of the revolutionary dance style, mostly in our dance, not so much in your one with Enjolras.”

“Why's that?”

“What you've got the attendants doing is really folk-y, which is great, because folk music depends on community and partners more than modern does, but it jars some with some of the overtly modern stuff. Consistency, and all.”

Grantaire frowns, considering, even though he knows she's probably right. “We can do a lot fancier than the kind of stuff I have them doing, though, and this is supposed to be a show piece. It's not an opera without a big fancy dance number barely connected to the plot.” She snorts. “But more collaborative I can do, and maybe we can echo some of their moves in different ways.”

“Collaborative is good. We're doing a lot of you doing one thing and then me following you, with some partnering moments, but I think you need to be doing the whole 'join the rebellion, where we fight together' bit a little more.”

Grantaire stands up, since he choreographs better on his feet. “Like, when you're moving away, brushing me off, moving to partner you instead of showing off to get your attention?”

“Yeah, exactly. And if you're pulling the 'see what we can do together' angle a little more, then maybe we can do some fancier lifts, I was hoping we'd get some of that in.”

He grins. “Always a pleasure to do that. And we can make that pretty dramatic with the levels on the stage. Hell, if there were beams up there you could exit stage ceiling—like at that summer seminar that time, right? Everyone loved that.”

“That would be awesome, but I don't think that will work unless I wanted to climb on the lights, which I definitely don't.”

Grantaire sighs. “Want to give something a try now?”

“No, give it a few days to think about it, you're the choreographer, after all.” She puts her arm through his. “Are you going home right now, or do you want to come back to mine for dinner and debrief?”

“Not with the boyfriend tonight? For shame, it's a Friday, isn't he supposed to keep you entertained?”

Floréal rolls her eyes. “He's bonding with the frat guys—”

“You do realize you are dating a parody of a mockery of a nineties stereotype, right?”

“So I'm free, and I decided to ask you instead of Irma if you wanted to come over and eat bad Ramen.”

“Nothing sounds better. Let me just let one of my roommates know I'll be gone and I'll be right with you.”

Floréal waves a hand. “Take your time, I'm not hungry yet.”

Grantaire, as he probably would have predicted if he had any sense at all, ends up pulled into a battle with Joly and Bossuet, which ranges over several of the lower levels and ends in them needing to sweep again since Grantaire put his boots on after practice. When he looks back out at the audience, Floréal is talking to Enjolras of all people. Both of their arms are crossed, and he hastily excuses himself and walks over to them just slow enough that no one could technically call it a jog. “Children, no need to fight over me,” he says, since he knows enough to know that they don't have any common areas of conversation besides him, much less common areas that would get Floréal glaring, though Grantaire doesn't have any idea why Enjolras doesn't seem to like Floréal much either.

“We aren't fighting,” says Enjolras, which probably isn't a lie, since Grantaire doesn't think that standing around and glaring really counts as fighting. He won't press any more with both of them around, anyway. “Are you heading out?”

“Yeah, going to hang out with Floréal. Why, did you want to run something?”

Enjolras frowns. “No, just asking. I think things are going pretty well, now that we've worked with the platforms for a little longer. I do think we need to work on the ending, though, our last exit.”

Grantaire nods. “We can do that next time, then. Sound good?” Enjolras nods in return. “Then I'll see you in a few days, put a time on the calendar when we can work that out, you know my schedule well enough by now.”

“Thank you, R, I will.” He spares a glance for Floréal. “Good night, Floréal. I'll see you both soon.”

“Night,” says Grantaire, and drags her away before she can say anything cutting. He gets them twenty feet away from the building before he dares to speak. “So, are you going to tell me what that was all about? Because it looked like you two were posturing over something, but I don't want to jump to any conclusions.”

When he looks over at Floréal, she's frowning, face shaded by her hat so he can't tell much more than that. “I don't know what kind of conclusions there are to jump to,” she finally says. “He asked if you were leaving with me, I said yes, he was weird and awkward about it and I started to get pissed off and you came over. That was the sum total of our interaction.”

“Enjolras is weird and awkward about everything, as far as I can tell.” It's not always true, but it's true often enough that he can tell himself that and not make a mystery out of nothing, anyway. “As long as you two don't completely hate each other or anything.”

“Sometimes I do.” She sighs. “But I know it's not exactly his fault you wanted to marry him and adopt a million sad-eyed rescue dogs.”

Grantaire lets go of her arm and knows it's a tell, but he also has no idea what the fuck it's a tell for, so maybe if she calls him on it he'll be able to figure it out. “It's really not. And we're done with that now. So you should stop hating him, and if I figure out what he was being weird about, I'll tell him to quit it.”

“For the last two months we share a campus? I'm sure that will matter a lot.” She takes his arm again, and he lets her. “Now, let's talk choreography again, how to meld the folk with the ballet and a little bit the modern so it doesn't look like a mess.”

It's an obvious reprieve and they both know it, but Grantaire is grateful enough to take it. He doesn't know what else to say about Enjolras anyway.

*

Joly is the first one to come down with the inevitable cast plague. Every show Grantaire has ever been involved with has at some point been struck down by some kind of unholy cold/flu combination that takes everyone down for a few days at a key point in rehearsals, and he's been waiting for this one, ready with every over-the-counter medication he can find and all the voodoo throat remedies his roommates swear by because singers are superstitious creatures.

The second Joly coughs and then sniffles, Grantaire pours him a shot of pickle juice and hands it over. “Go breathe on everyone else.”

Joly gives him a horrified look. “Why? I'm sick!”

“And everyone else is going to get it, so we might as well succumb to the inevitable.”

“You would be the worst doctor.”

“Good thing I'm not going to medical school, then,” Grantaire says, and prods him towards the bedroom, where Musichetta and Bossuet are not-so-innocently spending the afternoon, since they all have strong feelings about cold Sunday afternoons but Joly has a headache. “Go on, interrupt their afterglow with your Patient Zero act.”

“First of all, later we're going to talk about making a movie involving sexually transmitted zombie-ism, and second of all, the _worst doctor_.”

Grantaire wrinkles his nose. “I do not want to make a movie about sexually transmitted zombie-ism, and if that is your kink, go inflict it on your partners, not me.”

Joly makes a face at him and goes, which is why Grantaire loves him. He goes blithely along with even Grantaire's worst-thought-out ideas. A few seconds later, there's the sound of Musichetta and Bossuet complaining, and then of Joly sneezing, and Grantaire grins to himself and gives them a few minutes before he preemptively brings in tea and more pickle juice for Joly.

*

Combeferre is the next to go down with the cold, followed quickly by Musichetta, Cosette, both of Cosette's boyfriends, and then it seems like everyone has it, except lucky Enjolras and Floréal. Even Grantaire is a sniffling wreck, though at least his version of the cold seems a little less severe than everyone else's, or maybe he's just less paranoid about his delicate vocal chords.

“I have used sixty-five tissues in the last twenty-four hours,” Éponine informs him at the rehearsal Combeferre insists they have, to work on blocking without the singing.

Grantaire nods with all the sympathy he can muster when he can't do a _plié_ without coughing. “I think Musichetta and Joly and Bossuet are having a really gruesome competition to that effect.”

“Great, maybe I'll join.” She stares angrily at the stage, where Floréal is doing some blocking with Titania's attendants for after she's joined the rebellion, when she doesn't really have any hard-and-fast choreography. She's not mean enough to smirk whenever anyone coughs or sneezes, but there's a certain air of inescapable smugness. “I just keep telling myself there's only a week and a half till spring break and I can get healthy and then come back and give myself a nervous breakdown in the last month before my recital.”

He nudges her. “Looking forward to that, by the way. Are you on your own with the guitar up there, or have you got guest musicians?”

She shrugs. “I was going to ask Marius, but he's busy as fuck with the opera. Not sure about anything else yet.” She frowns. “There's a possibility, but everyone I know is busy with the opera.”

“I hope it works out, it's good to have someone else to panic with.” And he has his theories about the possibility, but Grantaire isn't going to get involved. Combeferre may be pining, but Grantaire knows all about that, and just how humiliating it is to have other people openly discussing it. Besides, he's not sure if Éponine knows.

Éponine frowns at the stage, where Combeferre is telling Cosette and Joly exactly what he wants them to do, and maybe there's something happening there on her side too, but Grantaire doesn't have the right to comment on anyone else's love life. “Maybe,” she finally says, in a way that makes him suspect she actually has zero memory of what he said last but disapproves of it on general principle. “This is your dance capstone, right?”

“Yeah, I'm in the group of people doing that. I have to sit down with Le Gros and Madame a few days before the show to defend my choreography choices or some shit like that. I'm really not thinking about yet.” Grantaire stops and coughs into his arm for long enough that Courfeyrac turns around on the stage to frown worriedly at him. Maybe they could all get a group discount at the campus clinic.

“Let us know if you want people at your defense to cheer you on. I don't know if Combeferre told you, all the music people using it for a capstone are meeting the faculty a few hours before the show to do a defense of the academic parts of things, mostly Combeferre.”

“I'll definitely have to go cheer him on. Or maybe combine the defenses, for self-defense.” There's a rash of coughing from on the stage and Combeferre looks like he wants to cry. “I'm going to sit down. Don't you have an entrance soon?”

Éponine makes a face and sniffs, digging around in her pocket for a pack of tissues and blowing her nose before she leaves the tissue in one of the trash bags that have sprung up all over the wings and in the audience. “I'll go on and see if they need me for this, seems like it's gone into general advice for the rebellion.”

“With this group it always does,” he says, more out of habit than for any other reason, and goes out to the audience. At the rate things are going, he won't really be needed for another twenty minutes, which is more than enough time for a catnap.

It's just starting to get warm enough that he doesn't need his padded winter coat wherever he goes, but he's gone back to it mostly for the pocket space while he's sick, and he's especially glad that it makes a great pillow when he gets back to his seat. The audience is fairly sparse—Enjolras is close to the stage consulting with Marius about something while Marius sniffles miserably and Bahorel is playing with his phone, either sexting Joy or playing some stupid game based on how pleased with himself he looks—so Grantaire settles into his seat and closes his eyes.

He wakes up approximately ten minutes later and doesn't know why until Enjolras says, quietly and probably for the second time, “R, wake up.”

Grantaire peels his eyes open to find Enjolras sitting two seats away watching him sleep. Or watching him wake up, that's a way less creepy way to think about it. “Do they need me on stage?”

“About five minutes from now if things go like they have been. It's been about ten minutes since you sat down. Sorry. I figured you would rather someone wake you in person than shout at you from the stage.” Enjolras frowns. “Do you need to go home?”

Grantaire sits up and stretches the kinks out of his neck and inevitably coughs. “No, everyone but you and Floréal is just as miserable, I can deal with it.”

“I'm not saying you can't deal with it, Grantaire, I'm just saying you could go home if you need to.”

He shakes his head. “No, it's the big confrontation scene next, we need to work on our last exit, I'm still not happy with it.”

Enjolras sighs. “Yes, because you'll do very well when you're coughing every time you do more than walk around from place to place.”

“My part of this rehearsal is going to go on for literally twenty more minutes, unless Combeferre wants to run something again. I'm not going to chicken out.” Any dignity he's mustering is completely ruined by how stuffed up his nose is, but he'll take what he can get.

“I'm not accusing you of—fine, whatever you say.” Enjolras stands up. “I just thought you would want to be awake.”

“If I were you, I would be avoiding all of us like the plague, which incidentally we have.”

“I'm making chicken soup tonight, to take around to everyone,” Enjolras says, like that's an answer to anything at all. “Will you be around when I deliver it?”

“Someone will be. Probably all of us, since we're all too exhausted to go anywhere but rehearsal and sometimes class right now. You should be aware that the apartment sort of looks like a nuclear launch site. Tissues everywhere, and all.”

Enjolras is making some kind of face, but Grantaire doesn't have the energy to decode it right now. “I'll just bring the soup by whenever, then.”

“Probably the best plan. Though, seriously, you don't have to.”

Enjolras stares at him. “My friends are sick,” he says, in a talking-to-idiots kind of voice, and Grantaire probably is being stupid, because of course Enjolras is going to do something about that, until he gets sick himself most likely. They're all just really lucky they don't have the bubonic plague or something equally Medieval he can martyr himself with. “I'll text before I come.”

“Absolutely, great plan.” Grantaire coughs until his eyes are watering, turned away from Enjolras, and turns back to find him frowning at him. “I'll be fine in a few days,” he says, because that's the magical thing about colds, and Grantaire is generally pretty quick to recover from them. “Now, we should get ready to get on stage, sounds like they're almost finished up there.”

Enjolras doesn't seem terribly pleased about something, but Grantaire is beyond trying to figure out what he's thinking, so he just gets up and raises his eyebrows at Enjolras until he stands as well.

Right on cue, Combeferre calls out “Can we have you two on the stage, please?” in their general direction, and Grantaire goes, Enjolras following along on his heels.

*

Le Gros summons Grantaire for a meeting the first day he feels like he has any spring back in his step, let alone _ballon_ in his dancing, and stares at him expectantly for almost a full minute before Grantaire finally says “I definitely get that I am in trouble, but I have no idea what I did.”

“It's more,” says Le Gros, every syllable dripping with exactly how unimpressed he is, “what you haven't been doing.”

“Ah.” Grantaire winces. “I've been sick?”

“All the more reason to do paperwork instead of dancing.” Le Gros doesn't cross his arms and glare, because he doesn't have to. He just continues looking at Grantaire like he's the extremely disappointing son he wishes he never had. It's unfortunately a familiar look. “You're a good dancer, Grantaire, and you could be a great choreographer, with a little more experience. However, you aren't going to get the experience if you don't apply for more companies, set up more auditions. Maybe someone will reject you first, then hear about your performance as Puck later and pull your file out of a drawer. It's your responsibility to make that possible.”

Grantaire ducks his head, and doesn't mention the few recent applications he _has_ sent out, because he knows Le Gros won't approve of those. “I got a lot of rejections.”

Le Gros rolls his eyes. “You think I didn't, when I was auditioning? Too tall, too fat, too many muscles, not delicate enough on my feet, too delicate on my feet, and what happened?”

“You played Siegfried in London.”

“And how did that happen?”

Grantaire smiles hopefully. “An amazing stroke of luck?”

For the first time, Le Gros relaxes. “Yes, actually. But I made the stroke of luck possible by making sure they _knew my name_ , Grantaire.” He slaps a piece of paper down on the table, and Grantaire isn't surprised to see that it's full of places to apply, all in Le Gros's spiky, impossible-to-read handwriting. “Not too long until spring break. If you're going to travel for auditions you'll need to buy a plane ticket soon. Keep that in mind when you apply.”

“I'm going to Florida for part of spring break, but I'll see about the second half.”

“If you're going to be in the south, there's a New Orleans company or two I could recommend.” Le Gros looks suspicious, but not overly so, which is good. “But you need to apply. I will stand over you while you fill them out if I have to, which would be a waste of both of our time.”

“I will make sure that it's unnecessary.” Musichetta is still fussing with auditions too, maybe they can have a solidarity pact.

“You'd better.” Le Gros sighs, like Grantaire makes him impossibly weary. “You've got potential. Don't fuck it up.”

Grantaire decides that's his cue and picks the paper up off the desk, to stuff into his pocket and look at later. “I'll certainly do my best.”

“If you did, I wouldn't have anything to worry about at all,” says Le Gros, because he's always got to have the last word, and then he waves Grantaire out.

*

Enjolras, of course, comes down with the cold the last of them all. Grantaire arrives late to one of their increasingly rare private rehearsals in the dance building, having been distracted by a conversation with Jehan about the feasibility of cryogenics, and Enjolras is leaning against the wall like he needs it to prop him up, pale and breathing loud in a way Grantaire recognizes.

“Okay, no,” Grantaire says first thing, which earns him a glare. “You're sick, we aren't practicing.”

Enjolras only crosses his arms and looks increasingly mulish. “You practiced all the time when you were sick.”

“I went to the already-scheduled stage rehearsals, yeah. This is extracurricular, and probably unnecessary, so I'm calling it off for the day. We have, like, four days until spring break, so you get better and we'll reconvene afterwards, okay?”

“Fine.” Enjolras bends down and grabs his bag, scowling all the way. “I'll see you at rehearsal on Friday, then, which I am still going to regardless of your—”

“This is ridiculous, shut up for a second.” Enjolras stops, and Grantaire actually feels bad pissing him off when he's already sick and obviously miserable. Enjolras is the worst patient in the world, and Grantaire hates himself a little for finding it endearing. “Give me your keys. I'll drive you home and make you tea, I know Combeferre is all over the place today.”

“If we're not going to practice, there's no need for that.”

“Seriously. You brought me soup last week, and a few weeks before that you took me out for dinner, I think I can handle getting you home and making you some tea.”

For a second, he thinks Enjolras is going to turn him down, but a few seconds later his shoulders slump. “That's much appreciated, thank you. Let me text Combeferre to let him know to get the bus home.”

“I can drive your car back to campus when I'm done,” Grantaire offers. “It's not like you'll be needing to go anywhere else, and it will put me back on campus so I can catch a ride home with Musichetta and Joly.”

“Okay. If you're sure.”

“I wouldn't have offered if I weren't willing.” Grantaire picks Enjolras's bag up, since he never carries much, and ignores his objections since they're cut off by a cough. “Come on, show me where you're parked. I still have a mostly-full pack of tissues in my pocket, need them?”

“I use handkerchiefs. Environment.”

“Of course you do.” Enjolras almost always parks on the big campus lot, since it's close to the music building, and since dance is nearly next door, it doesn't take long for Grantaire to hustle him out the door and shepherd him towards the lot, looking out for the car, which is covered in out-of-date campaign stickers and fairly easy to spot. “Keys,” he says when he catches sight of it, and he's surprised when Enjolras actually surrenders them.

They settle quietly into the car, and when Grantaire turns it on the radio immediately starts blaring, blasting out public radio because of course that's what Combeferre and Enjolras listen to in the mornings. Grantaire grins and turns it down, since the noise is making Enjolras wince, and Enjolras actually smiles back. “Combeferre says it has to be loud in the mornings or he'll fall back to sleep.”

“Obviously.” He leaves the radio playing quietly, a soothing voice talking about some human interest story about fireflies, since he can't think of anything interesting to say and Enjolras doesn't seem up to bearing the burden of conversation.

The drive to Enjolras and Combeferre's apartment isn't long. They live on the third floor of a rickety old house in a tiny apartment that Grantaire has only been to three times since they moved into it, since it's nowhere near big enough for a gathering of the whole opera crowd. He parks in the spot Enjolras points out to him, and Enjolras turns to him before he can even touch his door handle. “You don't have to come in. I can turn the kettle on myself.”

Grantaire chooses his words carefully. “I don't have to come in if you're uncomfortable or just want to be on your own. Otherwise, I figure you could take a little coddling.”

Enjolras is flushed now, and he looks down at his lap. “You can come in if you want. I was just saying you don't have to.”

They could probably argue politely about it all day, but Grantaire decides his best course of action is just to shrug and get out of the car, tossing Enjolras back his keys so he can let them into the house and then lead the way up the narrow stairway, doing a poor job of concealing his coughs as they go. Grantaire follows him up with Enjolras's bag, since it's a quiet enough neighborhood nobody's going to take his from the car, and into the apartment.

It's still a mess from Combeferre being sick, but that means the kettle is already on the stove and, when Grantaire immediately checks, full of water. “You should get into something comfortable, have the full home-sick experience.”

Enjolras stares at him like those are totally foreign words. “I'm comfortable,” he finally says.

Grantaire shrugs. “Suit yourself. I pretty much live in yoga pants when I'm sick, but if jeans and button-ups are your deal, I won't stop you. At least sit down. What do you want in your tea?” There's some kind of chamomile ginger concoction on the counter, so he'll go with that unless Enjolras says differently when he tries to introduce the teabag to the water.

“Lemon and honey, but I should be offering you refreshments,” says Enjolras, the last gasp of his stubbornness, but he stops pretty much the second Grantaire raises his eyebrows and retreats to the couch, where he wraps up in a blanket and pulls himself into a ball. “Do you have spring break plans?” he asks while Grantaire bustles uselessly around his kitchen, finding a loaf of bread and wondering if it's overstepping to offer to make toast or grilled cheese.

“Florida for some auditions.”

“What companies are there in Florida?”

Grantaire's been deflecting that question when it comes from everyone except his grandmother and his six-year-old cousin, but Enjolras is several feet away not making eye contact, so it's a reasonable test case. “Disney. They're always hiring dancers for their shows. And maybe a few cruise lines looking for entertainers, Joly and Bossuet gave me the idea by accident.”

He can almost hear Enjolras trying to think of something polite to say to that, and then feels the exact moment he gives up, because it comes a second before he says “You're too good for that.”

“Hey, I'm all for bringing joy to children. Not a lot of glory in it, but it's work.” He sighs, and Enjolras doesn't answer. “I'm not getting a lot of other offers, you know?”

“You should be. You're incredible, R, you deserve more than to put on, I don't know, a fish costume and dance at matinees.”

He sounds fierce even when he's speaking through a stuffed-up nose, and Grantaire stares at the kettle because he doesn't want to look at him. “We'll see how it goes. Le Gros gave me some more leads, I've been sending out e-mails for them, a place or two has been in touch about auditions, if I can get flights.”

“I hope you can.” Enjolras's voice is muffled when he continues, like he's wrapped his face in the blanket too. “I have a second audition with one of the New York groups I met with over winter break.”

“Good for you. You may not think it's good, but good for you. New York is the dream. You could do it, just for a few years. The arts of the future will still be there to save after you've participated in them.”

When Enjolras finally answers, his voice is very small. “I've been thinking about it.”

The kettle chooses that moment to boil, and Grantaire occupies himself pouring a mug of tea while he thinks of how to answer that, spooning in honey and finding a sliced lemon in the fridge to put on a saucer so Enjolras can add as much as he wants. When he comes into the living room, Enjolras draws his legs up, and Grantaire stares at the space left before he takes it and hands over the mug. “You should definitely keep thinking about it. And maybe do it. One of us should be able to live the dream, anyway.”

Grantaire doesn't startle when Enjolras's hand lands on his shoulder, but that's only because he sees it coming a second before it lands. “You should be able to find a place in New York, if you want one. You should be able to find a place anywhere.”

Grantaire's heart is about ready to pound out of his chest, and he doesn't have the luxury of pretending for more than a second that he doesn't know exactly why. He's done this before, listened to Enjolras talk and found excuses to be close to him, and last time it didn't end well, petered out into something that was less heartbreak and more just being drained, and last time he didn't _know_ Enjolras, had the luxury of not knowing how he looks when he's exhausted or trying to learn something from Grantaire, or collaborating and excited on ideas, or standing above him with a hand in his hair.

Last time, it was a crush.

“Oh, fuck,” he says.

That's a miscalculation, just like everything about the past six months has been a miscalculation, because Enjolras actually considers him a friend at this point, and of course he's going to ask why Grantaire is upset. His hand squeezes on Grantaire's shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just … not too excited about all the rejection in my future.” He looks down at his lap, fidgets with his shirt hem. “Hey, if I get hired to dance around in a fish costume, you're more than welcome to come hang out at the happiest place on earth.”

“Are you sure? I feel like I said something.”

“You didn't. This is all me.” Grantaire stands up. “You're set with your tea, right? I should get your car back to campus and find Combeferre so he has the keys.”

He finally dares a look at Enjolras, who's frowning, because he's smart and he knows how to read Grantaire these days and the combination is going to make the next several weeks excruciating. “If you're sure. You're welcome to stay a while longer, drink some tea yourself, or watch a movie. I won't push about applying for other companies, if that's what bothered you.”

Grantaire forces a smile. “I would stay, but like I said, Combeferre doesn't know what's up, I don't want him to be stranded. Feel better, okay? I'll see you at rehearsal in a few days.”

Enjolras hasn't stopped frowning. “I'll see you,” he says, and he probably has more to say, but Grantaire takes it as a dismissal and escapes with haste that he'll probably have to explain later.

Out in the car, he turns it on and waits while he takes a few deep breaths under the guise of giving the heat a minute to get itself started, though in Enjolras's ancient car the heat has never exactly been great. “Fuck,” he says again, because it seems like the most succinct way of summing up the situation, and wonders what he's going to say to Floréal. This isn't going to be solved by a trip to New York, some willpower and avoidance, and a one-night stand or two.

He's not sure what will solve it this time, but he can't think about that now, so he puts the car in gear and goes.

*

They like him at Disney, at least better than any of the companies he's talked to so far have, but Grantaire is fidgety and doesn't really enjoy the incessant snapchats he sends to his roommates and Floréal of all the characters he sees wandering around the place. He gets a text from Enjolras on his second day there, after he posts some pictures on Facebook, that just reads _I don't know if I should be wishing you luck or not_ , and he doesn't answer it.

Floréal calls after he's had three days of auditions for entertainment companies and waits in ominous silence for him to speak first. “There are a lot of things I could be in trouble for,” he finally says. “You should probably tell me which one you're calling about.”

“Well, aside from not doing anything more than snapping me pictures of Donald Duck making children cry for half of spring break, I know there's exactly one reason for a dancer to be on his own at Disney World, and I am going to kill you. And then bring you back to life, and then Le Gros is going to kill you.”

Grantaire sighs. “Call it a backup plan.” And then, recklessly, because he may as well get it all out at once, “Enjolras isn't too pleased about it either.”

Floréal pauses, and he winces. “This might be the first time I've knowingly agreed with him on something,” she says finally. “Now I'm going to ask why you told him and not me, and you're going to answer.”

“I don't know. I didn't want you to be disappointed in me. It just kind of came out when I was talking to him. I didn't exactly want to tell everyone. I'm not _happy_ that this is my backup plan.”

“You weren't lying about having some auditions in New Orleans and elsewhere in the south, right?”

“Getting on a plane in six hours,” he promises.

“Good. People can dance wherever they want, but you don't want to, so you don't. Simple as that.” She clears her throat. “You're going to explain the Enjolras thing some more now.”

Grantaire closes his eyes. She isn't there, but this is still easier if he doesn't have to even imagine looking at her. “Was I actually in love with him last year? Before you took me to New York?”

“Oh, R,” she says, gentle enough that he knows it's bad, even if he's not quite sure which answer would be worse. “I can't exactly answer that for you, but I don't think so.” She doesn't ask about now, which is telling, but he's probably been obvious for weeks now, in rehearsals. It's only a miracle she didn't mention it before, try to stop it. “Do you want me to meet you in New Orleans?”

He exhales. “You're supposed to be in Chicago doing the audition thing.”

“I'm sure I could line up a few things in the south fast enough.”

“Don't.” Grantaire swallows. “I don't think it's going to be as easy this time, Floréal.”

“Do me a favor?”

He's definitely going to say no given the subject of their conversation. “What do you want me to do?”

“First, make sure you do some barre work in your hotel room. It's good to get your head on straight. Second, call your roommates. They're better at all the comforting stuff than I am, and they're less likely to be horribly biased.”

“It's not exactly Enjolras's fault I keep falling for him.”

“Yeah, but I really want to blame him. He's clearly got some kind of superpower thing going on.” Floréal sighs, and there's a noise on her end of the line, muffled. Probably the boyfriend, maybe one of her parents, he thinks she was going to spend a few days at home. “We're graduating in what, six weeks? You can survive it for six weeks, and then for all you know you'll be on completely opposite sides of the country. I'm less worried about it this time because even if you're actually in love with him this time, at least you'll have all the time you want to be done with it.”

Grantaire has been trying hard not to think about graduation and everything it's going to bring, but Floréal seems to have found the one context where it's comforting. Enjolras will be in his life somehow, probably, because the Theory group is unlikely to fall out of contact too much, but they won't be together constantly for rehearsals. “Do you think I am in love with him this time?”

There's a long, horrible pause. “I would be more likely to believe it,” she finally says. “I was hoping you were just finally being friends, but if that's what you want to call it, it's not some huge shocking thing like finding out you had a crush on him was.”

“I hate this. I wish I could fall in love with someone else.”

“Believe me, so do I.” Floréal makes the closest thing to a soothing noise she has in her arsenal. “I'll see you on Monday, and we'll dance, okay? None of this opera shit, we'll just put on some music and dance for at least an hour until you feel a little better.”

“That sounds amazing.” It's been too long since even his nighttime sessions weren't full of Puck. He wishes he could pretend that maybe Puck's relationship with Oberon has anything to do with his own feelings for Enjolras. “If you aren't too tired from all your auditions, that is.”

She snorts. “Yeah, and you try not to wear yourself out catering to corporate assholes. Now, tell me about the companies you're auditioning for in the next few days, and we'll both pretend the Enjolras thing isn't happening.”

Grantaire is only too happy to oblige.

*

“So,” says Bossuet after Grantaire has finished telling them all about New Orleans and the dance company there, which loved him but freely admitted that they're in difficult financial waters. “Are you going to tell us what's wrong? Did the totally secret auditions we definitely didn't know about go badly?”

Grantaire pushes his food around his plate a little, which is a really obvious tell. But then again, with three of his best friends at the table with him, there were probably plenty of other tells as well. “First of all, I should worry that the three of you are either psychic or really good spies. Second of all, it's feelings stuff.” He makes a face. “Enjolras stuff. Again. I figure everyone I know got sick of that two years ago.”

Bossuet frowns and pours him another dash of juice, because when they do breakfast for dinner they're serious about it. “We're not sick of it if it's upsetting you, and I guess ...”

He looks over at Musichetta and Joly, and Grantaire knows them as well as they know him, which means he's prepared for Musichetta to cut in, leaning across the table to put her hand on his arm. “We all sort of worried if things would get mixed up again, with the two of you spending so much time together. I guess we just hoped it wouldn't go there, because you were so determined.”

“It snuck up on me. And it doesn't have to be a big deal, I don't need people to ply me with wine and poor-baby me, because I'm graduating in the middle of May and so is he and the chances of our ending up in the same city are astronomically small, so it's going to be a moot point.”

Joly kicks him under the table, and there's a tiny smile on his face that Grantaire is embarrassingly grateful for. “You're going to be okay,” he says, with a lot more confidence than either Bossuet or Musichetta feels, judging by their expressions. “And we'll be here to cuddle you all you want, and chaperone your rehearsals all you want.”

“Ooh,” says Bossuet, with forced cheer that Grantaire is painfully grateful for, “can we wear lace gloves and cluck disapprovingly about how young people these days shouldn't be talking unescorted or waltzing or doing more than two dances together?”

Grantaire laughs and takes the bait for the obvious nonsense, which Musichetta and Joly do as well after a brief conversation conducted through their eyebrows and possibly Morse code under the table. By the time Joly dares to ask again how the auditions in Florida were, Grantaire makes as dramatic an account of it as he can, including the slightly embellished detail of a council of princesses as the interview committee, and none of them mentions Enjolras for the rest of the night.

Joly kisses him on the forehead as the three of them head off to bed early, since one of them always ends up exiled to a guest room when they're visiting family. “You're going to be fine,” he says, surprisingly firm, and goes off before Grantaire has the chance to pretend he doesn't know what he's talking about.

*

“The show is on the second of May,” Combeferre says, out to all of them in the audience, and the general panic doesn't start in until he continues. “That means we have less than five weeks of rehearsal left, including other recitals and showcases for several of our principal actors. You've all been doing amazingly well at memorization, but we need to make sure we have those last few spots, especially the exact working in the recitatives, I made them iambic pentameter for a reason. The school orchestra will be joining us in a few weeks, I've been directing them for the last several. As you can see, our set was mostly finished over the break. Rehearsals are going to start going long, and we'll need the full cast more often, as much as we can manage it.”

“Staff members will also be attending more rehearsals,” says Fantine, standing up from where she is in the front row and smiling around at them. “This is going to take commitment, but many of you have theater experience already. This will just be a little step more tough, given the audience we're expecting.”

“So on that note,” Combeferre says, obviously aware that he's being the opposite of comforting, “we should get started for the day. We're running as much of the show as possible before five thirty, today, to start getting an idea of time. Also, please talk to me sometime today about costume pieces, some of you already have something from the costume shop but a few of you haven't got anything at all.”

“I've looked at the dance building closet,” Floréal says quietly to Grantaire while everyone starts milling around. “Found a few things for both of us, because I knew you wouldn't think about it. I'm thinking we should keep you shirtless, that would get us some attention.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “We might want to run that by Combeferre, just in case.”

“This opera needs some eye candy.”

“It has plenty of eye candy,” he says, waving his arm to encompass everyone, from Bahorel, built like a linebacker, to Courfeyrac, all charming smiles and illustrative gestures, and all around the rest of them until he pauses for a moment on Enjolras, who's looking back at him when he looks but turns a second later to continue a conversation with Éponine. He can only hope Floréal doesn't mention how obvious he's being.

“But singers are probably less likely to take their shirts off,” Floréal persists, apparently letting him off the hook for the moment, and stands up. “Sorry, I've got to talk to Cosette about some blocking for the scenes after I join the rebellion. Mind if I abandon you for a few minutes?”

“Go ahead.” Grantaire stands up and stretches a little. He warmed up before Combeferre decided to give a speech, and tested out the platforms now that they're covered in foam rocks and fake foliage to make sure they're still steady, but it's something to do, since everyone else is busily occupied.

Despite Combeferre giving them the motivational lecture, they're slow to start, and Grantaire keeps to himself in his seat since he doesn't enter right away anyhow. It seems like a perfectly safe place to be until Enjolras appears at his side a few minutes later. “How was your break?”

Grantaire has enough control over his body not to startle, not to still too much. It turns out that two and a half years of being infatuated with Enjolras is good preparation for being in love with him. “Fine. Most magical place in the world, you know. New Orleans liked me, and so did a few other places, but I haven't got offers yet.”

“You will. Keep applying.” Enjolras sits down in the row ahead of him and twists so he can face Grantaire, in a way that must be uncomfortable. “New York Opera offered me a place. Chorus, some features, a chance at a lead within as little as a year, since one of their senior singers is probably leaving for Vienna.”

“Enjolras, that's great, God, congratulations, I would think Joly and Bossuet would have told me about that immediately.”

Enjolras looks down. “No one knows.”

Grantaire wants to walk away again, hates how his heart jumps. “So you tell me.”

“Everyone else seems more sure of their plans than I am at the moment, which I never expected.”

“And then there's me?”

“That sounds bad.” Enjolras frowns and looks up again. “I just thought you would understand, I suppose.”

Grantaire shakes his head. “I really wish I did.”

“R,” Floréal calls from the stage, and he looks up to find her a few steps away from Cosette, her hands on her hips. “Want to come up here and help me figure out what I'm doing during the big finale?”

Enjolras is still frowning, but he twists enough that he isn't facing Grantaire so directly or obviously. “You should go, do your choreography duties.”

“Right.” Grantaire stands up and stays there for a second, because the conversation deserves some kind of comment. “Congratulations again,” he finally says. “I'll look forward to hearing about the rest of your offers pouring in after the opera.”

“Yours too,” says Enjolras, but Grantaire is already walking away, so he can pretend he didn't hear and doesn't have to deal with it.

**April**

“I've got an idea for our exit,” Enjolras tells him at the first April rehearsal, when half the cast is out in the audience cannibalizing the box of costumes Floréal liberated from the dance closet and Combeferre is in talks with Montparnasse, the New Media student filming the opera who insists that he should film every scene in full costume as many times as possible so they can get different camera angles in the final cut.

Grantaire, cross-legged on the edge of the stage and staying firmly out of the costume conversation (Bossuet has found a bowler hat, which Grantaire is fairly certain Floréal would not have actually brought. Bossuet's tendency to find comedy hats where there should be none may well be a superpower), looks up to find Enjolras standing over him. “You aren't going to go in there and find an ermine-lined cloak?”

Enjolras makes a face. “Combeferre and I are still discussing how overtly monarchical my costume should be, beyond a crown. Courfeyrac has suggested flower crowns for Musichetta and me.”

Grantaire laughs and stands up. “I would pay good money to see you glaring out from underneath a bunch of daisies. What's your idea? I figured wandering poignantly off the upper level was going to be the best we got.”

“Can you lift me?”

It takes Grantaire a few seconds too long to remember all the things Enjolras _doesn't_ mean by that, in unfortunately graphic detail. “Probably pretty easily,” he says after a too-long silence. “Am I supposed to carry you off the stage like a bride across her threshold? Because while that would be hilarious, I don't think it would fit Combeferre's vision, though he seems to be giving us pretty free rein. Maybe he'd go for it.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “You're already behind me,” he says, apparently deciding that ignoring him is the best course of action, “so you can start off first, maybe in a hurry once she finally banishes us, and I can follow and—here, look.” He grabs Grantaire's shoulder to spin him, and points up to the level where the stairs off stage were built, accessible by stairs on one side and separated by almost four feet from the next level down. “You go up the stairs, and I go the wrong way, and you could pull me up?”

Grantaire considers it, and hopes Enjolras doesn't notice how very still he's standing, with the weight of Enjolras's hand still on his shoulder, with the thought of Enjolras trusting him not to drop him off a ledge by accident. “Oberon has been the king in the forest for a really long time,” he finally says. “He knows his way around. He wouldn't strand himself somewhere Puck needs to rescue him, even in a hurry, Magna Carta or no Magna Carta.”

“I still like it better than us just walking off. Oberon has just lost the kinghood he's had for just as long as you say, he'd be bound to be disoriented. And Puck would help him.”

“Again, not questioning Puck's willingness, just Oberon's need for it.”

Enjolras frowns, considering the layout in front of them. “Objectively, it's the faster route, going up like rock climbing. What about boosting and pulling alternately, both of us?”

“Oberon just figured out Puck has some sympathy for the rebellion. You think he'd trust him and help him that much? I always conceptualized it as Puck following, Oberon sort of mad at him but not sending him away.”

“I don't think Oberon is stupid enough to turn on the one person who's still on his side, dangerous republican leanings or not.” Enjolras steps over to the base of the platform, one of the places without steps. “It would probably make more sense for you to boost me and me to pull you, character-wise, but I don't think I have the strength to hold you.”

Grantaire shakes his head, following him to the edge of the structure. “I'm also going to need less help than you, no offense. I've been using the set as a jungle gym since February, I can make it across most of the gaps unassisted, and there won't be too many except the first and last ones.” He kneels and holds out his cupped hands. “Step up. Might take a little struggle to get you up there, but I'll give you a boost.”

Enjolras, after a moment's consideration, takes off his sneakers, leaving him in his stocking feet, which will probably be far more pleasant for Grantaire. “You're sure?”

“Not at all, but you seem determined to try it. Now come on, I feel like I should be holding a ring box and people are going to start making fun in a few seconds.” The people who know, his roommates and Floréal and probably Éponine and Combeferre, won't make fun, but everyone else probably assumes it's safe territory to tease about and he doesn't really care to correct them on that.

For a second, he thinks Enjolras is going to back off, or call for a consultation, but instead he squares his shoulders, determined as ever, and goes back a few steps to give himself a striding start, stepping into Grantaire's hand after a moment's hesitation. Grantaire keeps his hands as steady as he can and lifts, glad when Enjolras takes his own weight again a second later, up and crouching on the platform, a hand offered out to help pull Grantaire up. Grantaire straightens instead, and strains to pull himself up, only accepting Enjolras's help at the last second, when his weight is already on the platform.

Most of the steps after that are just like skipping a step on a staircase, and on the last one, Grantaire jumps ahead, pulls himself up again and reaches down for Enjolras, lifting him behind him. It's a lot harder than lifting Floréal, but it could be worse, as well, and when they're on the top platform, he raises his eyebrows. “How did that feel to you? Honestly, I'm still not sure.”

“I like that,” Combeferre calls from the edge of the stage, and both of them turn to him fast enough that Grantaire is glad they're still kneeling on the platform instead of standing on it. “It's still awkward, but it felt like a first run-through. You think you can do it a little smoother? Not faster, but smoother.”

Grantaire jumps back down a level. Montparnasse seems to be filming them on his phone, and he tries not to frown at the camera. “Probably. Like you said, first run-through. You think Oberon trusts Puck at this point, enough to make that escape so partnered?”

“Come down here,” says Combeferre, and Grantaire retraces his jumps down, Enjolras following the slower way, by the steps. “I can see your concern, R, so Enjolras, I want you to pause before you take his offer of a boost. Really take a second to debate whether he's loyal or not. And R, I want you last off-stage, and I want you looking back, I think, we still want room for ambiguity.” He frowns, then turns out to the audience, raising his voice enough to be heard over the laughter from the group going through the costumes. “Floréal, can I borrow you for a minute?”

It's easier to relax into the work when Combeferre is helping too, especially with the promise of Floréal involved as well, so Grantaire sets himself to work, and hopes that Enjolras doesn't notice him avoiding looking at him more than necessary. It's a childish avoidance tactic, but it's all he has right now.

*

“R, I need independent corroboration on something.” Grantaire looks up from where he's sitting on his floor writing what he hopes will be one of the last academic papers of his life to find Joly standing in his doorway, wearing Musichetta's bathrobe and a pair of pajama pants Grantaire is fairly certain originally belonged to Bahorel, clutching a piece of paper to his chest like a Victorian maiden with a handkerchief.

“Show me.” He holds a hand out for the paper and is surprised when Joly joins him on the floor before handing it over, because Joly is usually pretty dubious of floors when he hasn't cleaned them himself. Grantaire takes a moment to read it, to make sure it isn't any more or less than what he assumes, and he nudges Joly with his shoulder when he finishes. “Hey, why aren't you over the moon right now? NYU Steinhardt? That's fucking great, that was your top choice, you're going to be the best music therapist ever.”

“It is great. It's just kind of … really far from Musichetta. She's thinking really seriously about that offer of a free ride for a Masters in San Fransisco, and I don't want Bossuet to have to choose, and I'm kind of freaking out.”

“Hey.” Grantaire isn't anyone's first choice for comfort, but he's probably the best friend Joly has who he doesn't kiss on a regular basis. “They're going to be the first ones to tell you this—well, not literally, apparently I get that honor—but they love you, okay? You will all spend obscene amounts of money on plane fare and Skype literally all the time, but you'll get through it, and then you can be a music therapist wherever Musichetta is being a diva, it's a fairly movable career. Bossuet will find a way to be with you two, your relationship is always where he gets lucky.”

“Sometimes I wish we'd all picked boring careers so all four of us could live together forever,” Joly mumbles, and tips until he's leaning on Grantaire properly, sighing when Grantaire puts an arm around him. “Have I mentioned lately that senior year is scary?”

Grantaire pulls him in closer. “No, but I can't blame you.” He looks at the letter again. “New Orleans said they were passing my name on to some guy who's starting a traveling company based out of New York, Corinth I think, said they thought I might be a good fit. Nice of them, but the whole process sucks anyway.”

“I would love it if you were in New York. I mean, a bunch of people are trying to be there, but you're special.”

“You are too.” He almost mentions the offer Enjolras is still thinking over, but the whole cast gossips about their various auditions and callbacks constantly and Enjolras still hasn't said a thing, so presumably Grantaire is supposed to keep it to himself. “We'll seduce Musichetta over to the East Coast if we can.”

“She auditioned for a few companies from Boston to Chicago, got some interest, but she likes the idea of having more academic work behind her too, and California is the only place offering her this much of a tuition break.”

“Look, I have zero worries about the three of you. People do long-distance relationships all the time, two people, three people, who cares? If you guys don't work out, it's not going to be because you didn't all try as hard as you possibly can.”

Joly snuggles into him, cuddly as a cat. The bathrobe is weirdly slippery under Grantaire's fingers, since it's Musichetta's lingerie bathrobe rather than her actual wandering-the-apartment-after-a-three-AM-shower one. “I'm not afraid of that—not too afraid of that. I just don't want to be so far away from her, or them.”

“It's all temporary. She'll get famous like Joy, and you and Bossuet can be like Bahorel, her jetsetting and loyal boyfriends.”

Joly hums thoughtfully. “Do you think there are big concert hall concerts in the Caribbean? I've always wanted to go to the Caribbean.”

“There's always our cruise line backup plan.” And he has possible jobs on three cruise lines now, with Disney interested as well, though he's hoping he doesn't have to take any of them up. “Fruit hats, tropical locales, a person of yet-to-be-determined gender in every port for me ...”

“You should become a cruise mogul,” Joly says, kind enough not to mention the job offers, since as an apartment they've silently decided not to bring it up unless Grantaire does explicitly. “Capital R Cruises.”

Grantaire takes that to mean that the serious part of the conversation is over and starts coming up with elaborate cruise routes and entertainment ideas, including a full-scale production of _Midwinter_ with an original cast reunion, and Joly stays until they both fall asleep on Grantaire's floor, and they wake up at three in the morning to Musichetta and Bossuet poking their heads around the door. Grantaire excuses himself to make tea while Joly explains and they all hug each other and pretend not to cry in his bedroom, and then goes back with four cups once the kettle boils and finds himself enveloped in the hug as well, as soon as he puts the tea tray down.

They all end up falling asleep in his bed even though it's about half the size of the bed in the other bedroom, and Grantaire wakes up to hear Joly on the phone with NYU, accepting their offer.

*

Grantaire has been in enough performances to sense when everyone is sick of each other, too much time spent together doing hard work, and he knows something is going to happen before Éponine finally snaps halfway through a rehearsal, after Courfeyrac asks which of them is singing which harmony on part of a number. “I don't fucking care, you choose, I'll come back in ten and sing whichever one you don't want to,” she says, loud enough for the whole theater to hear, and then she's off the stage.

Everyone stands frozen for a few seconds, surprised at how fast things went from tense to Éponine walking out, and then Marius, of all people, saves the day. “Courfeyrac, I'll go over your harmony, I have who has what part written out in my score. Cosette, Joly, Bossuet, do you want yours too?”

That gets things moving again, and Grantaire slips away, following Éponine's path out of the building. Someone should go after her, and he won't take it personally if she yells at him, and he won't yell back, so he's probably one of the better candidates. He catches Combeferre's eye as he goes and Combeferre nods, so he takes that as encouragement and grabs someone's shoes (Courfeyrac's, he thinks) on his way out.

Éponine is standing at the front of the building when he gets there, fists clenched, looking like she'd kill for a drink or a smoke if she either drank or smoked. Éponine has remarkably few vices, for someone whose life is as tough as hers often is. “It's honestly not any sort of deep emotional horrifying whatever,” Éponine says as soon as the door shuts behind him. It's starting to warm up as April passes, and he's glad, since neither of them has a jacket.

“I didn't figure it was. I'm just making sure you don't wander off and never come back or something.”

“Ugh.” She paces away a few steps and then back again. “This is why I never did theater in high school, everyone got keyed up by the end and it was like Hollywood with all the sex and break-ups.”

Grantaire tries to parse that. “Did you have sex with someone? Because you could definitely tell me all about that, but I think it would be weird for both of us and maybe I should send Musichetta out instead.”

“Fuck you.” Éponine rolls her shoulders. “Just sick of everyone, and feeling like the weak link because this should have been Jehan's role. I'm not an opera singer.”

Grantaire shrugs. “Seems to me you're doing okay, and Jehan is busy writing the weirdest string quartet in the world for his capstone, so he's happy playing in the orchestra. It's all you.”

“Funny, that's not any less pressure.”

“I figure ...” Grantaire sighs, because he isn't good at comforting, not in a way Éponine will take. He can't just cuddle with her and make jokes until she lets herself be cheered up. “I didn't exactly have much faith that I was going to be able to do this either, but I figure Combeferre doesn't make mistakes about people. He says we can do it, we can do it. Even if it's just because we don't want to disappoint him.”

“Sometimes I am really sure that Combeferre is actually Mary Poppins.” She shakes her head, some of her hair falling out of its bun after more than an hour of rehearsal. “It's not like I'm walking out, R. I just needed a break.”

“I get that. I'll take a break too. And I'll shut up if you want me to.”

“I don't really care.” She doesn't say anything more, though, and Grantaire doesn't have anything else to say that doesn't seem cliché or stupid, so there's nearly a minute of silence before she says, quietly, “It's kind of amazing, isn't it? The opera, everything happening with it? It's kind of scary.”

“Yeah,” says Grantaire, agreeing with all of it, and doesn't have anything else to add to that.

They lean against the building for about ten minutes before the music building door opens again. Grantaire takes a second before he turns around to debate who it is, but in the end he's only a little surprised that it's Combeferre himself. “I thought I was going to have to go all the way to the Union for you two,” he says once he's outside, looking between them, not quite smiling.

“I'm sorry,” says Éponine, eyes on the ground. She doesn't say any more, even when Combeferre takes a step towards her.

“We just needed some fresh air,” says Grantaire, and stands up straight. “I'll go back in.”

“Thank you, R. We'll be starting from the beginning of the scene when we come back.” Combeferre turns to Éponine, Grantaire very politely dismissed, and quietly hums a note. “Let's go over your part out here, everyone else did theirs with Marius.”

Grantaire leaves them alone, and only sneaks a look back once after he's through the doors, to check that Éponine isn't angry again, and finds them bent close together, probably humming.

Everyone is quiet for the rest of the afternoon, still snappish but more tentative about it, and Éponine's jaw stays set the whole time after she comes back, but they get through the show, and Grantaire keeps any suspicions he has to himself. Everyone else has the same courtesy with him, after all.

*

Grantaire doesn't know Le Gros is at their first rehearsal with the orchestra until Floréal catches his shoulder before he goes on for the first time, in costume since Montparnasse is there to film as much as he can and feeling exposed. “Dance well,” she says, too severe to be a joke.

He raises his eyebrows. “Or else?”

“Le Gros is watching.”

Le Gros has seen most of the steps, approving them and going over them when Grantaire needs help, but that's a far cry from Le Gros watching him do it on the stage, Grantaire's first solo choreography effort, an opera's worth of dancing. “Wow, that's definitely going to make me less nervous.”

Floréal smiles at him. “I hope not. You're better when you're nervous.” She shoves him at the staircase, since Enjolras and Musichetta are almost finished with their first big number, the one right before Grantaire's entrance, and he has to get up to the upper level. He makes a face at her before centers himself and starts climbing, waits for the musical cue to wander out, move around the upper levels of the stage, and finally come to rest at the same edge he'll boost Enjolras up at the end.

The stage lights are on so Montparnasse can film, even if everyone is so far refusing to use stage makeup so they'll look washed out, and it's strange hearing the familiar songs with a full orchestra instead of with the help of Combeferre or Marius. Some of the beats he's used to finding get swallowed in the sound from the strings, and little pieces of melody he'd never noticed before come out, and he finds himself actually startled when Enjolras says his name in the recitative, and has to shake himself to concentrate properly, to trust Enjolras's voice more than the accompaniment behind it.

By now, this dance is more familiar than anything else in the show, from all the work he's put into it, and he concentrates on that instead of on Le Gros in the audience. Enjolras seems to catch his determination, and Grantaire smiles at him briefly when he's turned away from the audience and returns to making sure everything he does is as precise as he can make it, the form as perfect as Le Gros could ask for.

No one applauds when they finish—it's only a rehearsal, after all—but Grantaire feels like they might deserve applause, which is something, and Enjolras smiles at him when the music stops, a few seconds before Combeferre calls a halt to ask them to do the second half again so he can fix the tempo towards the end, when Enjolras has a tendency to speed up a little less than the orchestra does.

The rest of the rehearsal is more brutal than Grantaire was expecting: if Combeferre as a composer and director has lots of ideas about how he wants things to go, Combeferre as a conductor is exacting, and by the end of the night, the orchestra seems grumpy and exhausted, and the cast isn't much better. “I am going to be really glad to join the ranks of the Starbucks baristas,” Grantaire says at the end of rehearsal, not to anyone in particular.

Of course, Enjolras is the one standing next to him, and he's one of the few more likely to scowl than to laugh in commiseration. “You aren't going to end up a barista.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes at him. There isn't much else to do, unless it's to tell him not to take Grantaire's every offhand remark so seriously. “After today, I might be glad to. Combeferre certainly knows what he wants.”

“He does.” Enjolras is smiling, though, that fond way he does for all of his friends. “That's what's going to make the show great, though.”

“We'll all have to put our supposed careers on hold to go on tour.”

“I would go, in a second.” Enjolras clears his throat. “I hope you would too.”

“Oh, I'd follow you anywhere,” says Grantaire. It's too familiar making that kind of not-quite-a-joke again, after more than a year of not letting himself do it, breaking the habit.

He never thought Enjolras noticed before, considering he never responded, but he notices now, eyes widening for a second before he looks away. “You're an integral part of the production. More important than me, really. I didn't come up with my music, I'm just singing it. The choreography is all yours.”

“Grantaire,” says Le Gros, and Grantaire jumps. He hadn't noticed before how close he'd swayed to Enjolras while they were talking, but it's obvious now, by the way Enjolras leans back and Grantaire still almost bumps into him when he turns around to face Le Gros, who's standing in the wings with his arms crossed. “A word?”

“I'll go speak to Musichetta about our last duet, since Combeferre made us do it four times and something is still off,” says Enjolras, all in one rushed breath, and disappears after nodding between them.

Grantaire turns to Le Gros and tries not to feel like he's in trouble, since Le Gros isn't actively scowling at him or anything. “How did you like it? Floréal told me you were here so I paid extra attention to my turnout, which I hope you appreciated.”

“You should always pay that much attention to your turnout, it was barely adequate,” says Le Gros, as close to affectionately as he ever gets. “You did very well, actually. You have done well all year.”

Grantaire blinks at him. He's entertained, on his more stressed weeks, deathbed fantasies of Le Gros telling him he's a great choreographer, since it's hard to imagine getting unreserved praise from him without a hospital bed to spur it on. Getting it without feels like cheating. “Thanks. I've been doing my best.”

“To be honest, I was worried at the beginning of the year about your ability to do it without burning yourself out. I almost told you to just concentrate on the showcase, perhaps let you choreograph your own number there.”

“But?”

“But you're doing well, as I said. There will be some talent managers here the night of the opera, I'll make sure to introduce you.” Le Gros claps him on the shoulder, which is maybe even stranger than the compliments. “I don't think not having a solo in the spring showcase will damage your career too much.”

“Great.”

“Now, I want to talk about your dance with Floréal, the second lift was sloppy and if you drop my future _prima_ off one of those platforms I'm going to kick you out of the program.”

That's comfortable ground again, and Grantaire falls into the conversation easily.

He keeps finding himself smiling for the rest of the night, but he keeps his reasons to himself.

*

Jehan is the first of the Theory group to have a recital, though it isn't really a recital. It's technically a public thesis defense, and it's only public because Bahorel and Enjolras whined for about fifteen minutes (if Musichetta is to be trusted) until Jehan agreed to let everyone sit in. Grantaire goes, even though Jehan scheduled it during one of his usual practice sessions, and slips in the back while Jehan gets ready to give his speech to the professors judging his contribution.

Enjolras, in the front row, turns around the second he hears the door, and Grantaire expects a scowl but gets a beckon instead. The only seat left next to him is on the end, which means he has nothing resembling protection, but Grantaire doesn't dare blatantly turn down an invitation, because he suspects that Enjolras would want an explanation for that.

“Is Jehan nervous?” he asks when he sits down, because Jehan is tuning his violin and talking to Feuilly and the other string players he's roped into helping with his performance, so he can't exactly ask the question directly.

Enjolras tilts his head, considering the question. “I asked him how he's doing and he quoted several lines of Rumi and then asked if Bahorel was serious about ordering him three dozen roses, so I think he's about as well as could be expected.”

Grantaire considers that. “ _Did_ Bahorel order him three dozen roses?”

“That's anyone's guess. Probably not. Jehan prefers lilies, Bahorel would know that.”

There's really no answer to that, so Grantaire leaves it and leans across Enjolras to talk to Cosette on his other side for the few minutes that remain until Jehan calls them all to attention.

For most of the presentation, Grantaire is completely at sea, despite six semesters of theory. It doesn't help that the first sentence of out Jehan's mouth is “I tried to write a Baroque tone poem” and it only gets worse from there. Lamarque and Javert ask horrible questions and Fantine asks slightly less horrible questions about themes and finicky chord things and Jehan justifies every single one of them and turns a little pinker every time he does it, so by the time he actually goes to his chair to play the quartet he wrote he's a shade of fuchsia Grantaire has only seen him when tipsy and talking to attractive people.

Combeferre's music, which every singer has said at least once is hellishly hard, has nothing on Jehan's when Jehan is really trying, Grantaire discovers within the first minute of the quartet. It's the kind of music he would expect to hear if an alien civilization got in contact and sent a musical delegation to impress the people of earth, and it's fascinating, but he can definitely see why it counts as much as a whole opera, and for all it's nothing he was expecting, it feels entirely and completely like Jehan, and Grantaire lets himself be enthralled by it.

When it's over, the whole Theory group immediately goes to their feet, applauding, just like they did last year at Joy's recital, since she's an honorary Theory member, and Jehan and Feuilly both laugh and wave while the remaining two members of the quartet look mildly alarmed. Grantaire doesn't know the rest of the music department, but he suspects they have a reputation. He looks over at Enjolras to tell him that, or ask him that, and finds Enjolras, finally finished applauding, with tears in his eyes. “You okay?” he asks as they all sit down and wait for the committee to send them away so they can debate Jehan's future in peace.

“Fine,” Enjolras says, turning and giving him a miniscule smile, his eyes still bright. “It was a lovely piece.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Javert stands up to throw them all out of the room while they deliberate, and Grantaire is swept up by Joly and Bossuet almost immediately, one on each side of him rambling about Jehan's composition and a theoretical science fiction short film based on it. He thinks he catches Enjolras watching him just before Jehan comes flying out to tell them he passed with flying colors, but Enjolras doesn't come over to him, so he decides it's his imagination.

*

“Watch your fourth position, you're going off balance.”

“Fuck, you're right.” Floréal pauses in her routine and resettles herself until she's straight through her core, then scowls and relaxes out of position completely. “Turns out last semester messes with your head.”

Grantaire, sitting with a notebook, theoretically making a draft for the academic part of his choreography Le Gros is insisting on, frowns his agreement. “Worried? Want to talk about it? Because you're going to be fine, you've had a few offers already.”

“Now that I've had a few, I'm letting myself be picky about them. Maybe not my best choice.” She straightens again, goes back to her perfect position, though her neck is tense enough that either he or Wall Street is going to have to massage the kinks out later. “I just … I don't want to either be that ballerina who's just barely not good enough for New York and ends up in companies farther and farther away from the limelight or the one who gives it up to be with her boyfriend.”

“So you decide you're good enough for Moscow, or Paris, or London.” He scribbles a few more notes, because he knows that's more comforting friend territory and Floréal rarely has the patience for that. “Or you audition for every New York company, or New Jersey company, that you can until you find something. Le Gros has me sending out four applications a week, it's fucking brutal.”

“And how many auditions do you have lined up?”

“Sent out a DVD to a few, two have said they'll be in town for the showcase and may stay for the opera, a few more auditions lined up in late May.” He hasn't said this part to anyone yet, but he has his fingers crossed, everything crossed. “One in New York. New company, wants to mix some genres, looking for people with flexibility and choreography experience. New Orleans passed my name to them, and Le Gros gave his blessing.”

“You won't mind if I'm a little bitter if you do it without me, right?” She corrects her arm position and starts again. “Le Gros has me applying for all sorts of pure ballet, maybe I'd have better look in some other avenues.”

“Worth a shot.”

“They never tell you what a bitch it is to get famous,” she says, breaking pose so she can look at him properly, not just in a mirror. “But I'm going to do it anyway.”

Grantaire stands up. “Damn straight you are. Want a partner?”

“Always,” says Floréal, and points at the space behind her on the barre so he can take up his position and follow along with the rest of her warmup.

*

Éponine's recital is halfway through the month, a much-needed break in the middle of what feels like near-constant rehearsal. Grantaire arrives with the rest of his roommates to find the Union fairly full, if not packed, and Éponine up on stage talking seriously to Lamarque, wearing a sparkly dress he thinks he's seen in Musichetta's closet and clutching her guitar.

Grantaire makes sure they have a table close to the front and gives Éponine two thumbs up when Lamarque leaves her alone and she looks out at them. It's a simple set-up on the stage, a stool and a microphone for Éponine, the guitar case off to one side, and the Union's piano pushed up on the stage.

“Mind if I sit down?”

It's not even a surprise that Enjolras is the one asking the question, though judging from Bossuet and Joly's faces, they think it is. Musichetta is smiling, though, and after a second the other two relax. “Go ahead,” says Musichetta. “Not sitting with Combeferre or Courfeyrac?”

“Combeferre has to sit with Lamarque, and Éponine said that if too many people hover at the front of the room she'll throw her shoes at them. Obviously not in Lamarque's hearing. And Courfeyrac ...” Enjolras trails off, like he's trying to find a delicate way to share the not-news that Courfeyrac will probably be whispering loving things in the ears of his significant others all night and it's a little awkward to be around.

“Well, you're more than welcome to our merry band of musketeers,” says Joly, and then frowns. “If Grantaire is D'Artagnan, that sort of makes it hard to figure out who Enjolras is. He's definitely not Cardinal Richelieu.”

Grantaire can actually see Enjolras forcing himself not to complain about the musketeers supporting the monarchy, and it's hilarious that it's difficult and sweet that he's trying anyway. “Maybe we should be the Merry Men,” he offers, so Enjolras doesn't say anything to ruin the moment. “I call Friar Tuck.”

“Who calls Friar Tuck? Friar Tuck is not a call-able character,” Joly says, with a grin and a roll of his eyes that shows he knows exactly what Grantaire was doing.

Before the conversation can degenerate into an argument about who gets to be Robin Hood (which is why they safely settled on the Three Musketeers last year), Éponine taps the microphone at the front of the room, posture just slightly different in the way it seems to be when she's performing. “Hi, everyone, I'm Éponine, and I'm glad you're here whether you're a friend of mine or someone who saw a sign for tonight's performance and thought the grainy picture looked hot.” Inevitably, a few guys in the back of the room cheer, and Éponine shakes her head. “For those of you who don't know, this is my recital for the music department, so everyone clap and make sure Professor Lamarque thinks I'm awesome.”

Everyone obediently claps, and Éponine relaxes just slightly while she settles on her stool, guitar in her lap. Grantaire takes the opportunity of the lights dimming to look around at their friends, collected at a few tables. Most of them are dressed up, like it's a jazz bar and not the Union on a Tuesday night, and Grantaire loves his friends more than he can say. Combeferre is indeed sitting up with Professor Lamarque, watching attentively as Éponine begins her first song, something Grantaire thinks he recognizes from one of his grandmother's folk albums, Judy Collins or Carole King. “Is Combeferre accompanying her for a number or two?” he asks Enjolras under his breath between verses, since Combeferre is at attention and wearing a suit.

“Yes, and hush,” says Enjolras, although he's smiling despite the scolding, which is unusual.

Éponine doesn't talk much between songs, and her smile looks forced whenever her friends applaud too loud and long whenever she finishes one, but she does an amazing job anyway. She sings sweet and bluesy, with one or two of her own songs, and by the end of her forty-minute set she has the audience eating out of the palm of her hand, not just her friends but the dudes in the back as well, everyone who happened to stop by and got caught by her voice. “Last one,” she finally says, and smiles when there are boos from the audience (the loudest one is from Bahorel, of course). “So, for a special treat, a friend of mine is coming up to play backup for this last number, even though I'm pretty sure he hasn't got the time. I don't know, he's got some opera to do or something? Anyway, please give a warm welcome for Combeferre, one of the school's resident composers and, incidentally, composer of this song.”

Grantaire applauds, trying to contain his grin, as Combeferre stands up from where he was sitting and takes the stage, giving the audience a little bow and Éponine a brief squeeze on the arm before going to the piano, playing a few chords to settle into it. “Are you ready?” he asks, probably most from showmanship, because Éponine is the one who's been up on stage all night and he's been sitting in the audience.

Sure enough, she turns to him, away from the microphone but still close enough that Grantaire can hear her voice waver a little when she says “Are you?”

In answer, he starts playing. Grantaire was expecting one of the pieces from the opera, adapted into solo form, since Éponine's solos aren't very long. Instead, it's something slow and jazzy, though the chords are still Combeferre all over. Éponine stands to sing this one, something that manages to be about space and sound like Ella Fitzgerald, and Grantaire switches between watching her, the way her hands aren't quite steady now that she isn't holding her guitar, and Combeferre, who knows his own song backwards and forwards and watches her the whole time.

Everyone in Theory is on their feet the second the song finishes, leaving Éponine to smile and wave and take a bow before she gestures Combeferre up from his piano and takes his hand, forcing him into a bow alongside her. She keeps his hand afterwards, and Combeferre looks startled and pleased. Grantaire grins as the applause peters off, turning to Enjolras, who's noticing the same thing he saw. “Are they already, or are they working it out now?” he asks, because Enjolras is the most likely person to know.

“He wanted to wait until after the opera,” says Enjolras, quiet, close enough that the air behind the words ruffles Grantaire's hair. “I don't think that's going to happen.”

The parts of the audience who don't know Éponine personally are leaving already, shuffling out of the Union, and Éponine is off the stage now, talking to Lamarque, expression serious but not unhappy. Combeferre is standing a few feet away with the same little smile he gets on his face whenever a scene in the opera goes perfectly. “I don't think it is either,” says Grantaire.

When he turns, Enjolras is standing right next to him, in Grantaire's space the same way he has been a lot lately, and Grantaire moves away enough to give himself breathing space, looking away from Enjolras as he does it. He's not sure he wants to know what Enjolras's expression will be. “They're about finished,” Musichetta says from his other side, reaching an arm out so he can retreat to her. “What do you think, perfect score?”

“Obviously,” says Enjolras, smiling at Musichetta and then Grantaire. “And a record deal, possibly. Lamarque has connections.”

“He's actually the opera mafia,” Feuilly says, coming up to them and resting a hand on Enjolras's shoulder. “Also, I hope she's not offended that Bahorel didn't get her flowers. He got Jehan and I both flowers, he'll probably drown the cast in them on opera night, but I don't think he has anything for Éponine.”

“She's allergic,” says Enjolras, because of course he knows that. “I think Combeferre picked her up something.”

“Does anyone know how Bahorel actually affords all these flowers?” Grantaire asks. “It's turning into one of those unsolvable Bahorel mysteries, we don't need new ones a few weeks before graduation.”

Enjolras grins at him, the sudden bright smile that's much less common than his quiet close-lipped smile. “I like that Bahorel's a mystery,” he says, and it's too close, too much eye contact for Grantaire to deal with, so he doesn't, just turns away.

He's just in time for Éponine to finish talking to Lamarque and come running over to them, letting Cosette and then Feuilly and then the rest of them sweep her up in hugs. Grantaire makes sure to give her a firm one, and she gives him a tiny smile when she pulls away before turning to hug Joly and Bossuet, who are mostly incapable of giving hugs separately. Grantaire takes the opportunity to sidle away across the group, to get to Combeferre, who's watching Éponine and somehow managing not to seem creepy while he does it, which is an amazing achievement. “Good job,” he says. “I didn't know you were writing a song for Éponine.”

Combeferre turns to smile at him, and he just looks quietly happy, not tired at all for the first time all semester. “She asked me if I would. I haven't done much composing all year, just tweaking things for the opera. It was nice to get back to it.”

“Plan to write her many more?”

Combeferre just raises his eyebrows. “I think you know the answer to that.” Grantaire can't come up with a quick retort, and a second later Combeferre turns to gently capture Éponine's attention, since she's just removed herself from Bahorel's bear hug. “You're allergic to flowers, so I found you something.”

Éponine raises her eyebrows and then relaxes, against all odds, instead of getting suspicious. “Let me go collect Gavroche from Cosette's dad, they're lurking in the back, and then maybe you can drive us home? You can give it to me then.”

“We'll give Enjolras a ride home,” offers Grantaire, since he's standing right there and he can see Combeferre gearing up to regretfully object on those grounds. It's Enjolras's car, but he's pretty sure Enjolras won't mind too badly. “Musichetta, do you mind?”

Musichetta probably does, judging by her expression, but a look at Combeferre and Éponine makes her smile and shake her head. “Sure, what the hell. Present for the triumphant singer, and all. It will be a little cramped, but we've done worse.”

The gathering devolves into logistical details and occasional rehashing of their favorite numbers, and Grantaire lets Enjolras work his details out with Joly and Musichetta.

He's pretty sure Éponine and Combeferre leave holding hands, and that makes any discomfort with Enjolras worth it.

*

Marius is the one to say it, after one of their last full-cast run-throughs, everyone in costume and sitting in the audience waiting for Combeferre to give notes after a performance they ran through without stopping once. “It's amazing.”

“It's getting there,” Combeferre allows.

Normally, Marius doesn't contradict Combeferre, some left over terror from freshman year, when Marius apparently said something unforgivable about Bach. This time, he shakes his head. “It's there. You could perform it tomorrow and it would be amazing.”

Everyone is smiling, exchanging looks. It's hard to be objective, after months and months of rehearsing, and Grantaire's been doing it longer than almost anyone, but he thinks it's good, better than any of them could have expected at the beginning of the year. It's a relief to hear that out loud, to know that for a few minutes everyone is thinking it. “Fine,” Combeferre says, and he's grinning. “I'll admit we're wonderful. And I'm glad, since the performance is next week.”

Grantaire tunes out the notes, except at the rare moment when he hears his name, but the feeling of warmth stays, and he thinks everyone else feels much the same, because as they're leaving, Floréal is actually smiling through a conversation with Enjolras, and Grantaire gets Bossuet's arm around his shoulder as they leave. “So, scale of one to ten, how famous are we going to get from this?” says Bossuet, steering him forward to the dressing rooms so they can get ready to go home.

“Oh, twelve, definitely,” says Bahorel, coming up beside them. “What do you say, gentlemen? Ready to sign a million autographs? Joy loves doing autographs, she should have done the rockstar thing.”

Grantaire grins at them both. “I'll look forward to seeing how it goes. Think we can pay a bunch of freshmen to come cheer and throw their panties at Combeferre when he takes his bow?”

Bahorel snorts. “Come on, R, like Combeferre isn't already the heartthrob of the music department, writing operas and undergoing the smoothest seduction campaign known to man. Next to my own, of course.”

“So what you're saying is lots of underwear on the stage,” says Grantaire, and grins when they laugh and Bossuet tightens his arm around Grantaire's shoulders.

It's a little scary, thinking it's going to go well, but he's almost sure it will.

*

At the very end of April, four days before the opera, Grantaire finds himself backstage at the university's smaller stage, where all the concerts and such have been relegated to in the face of _Midwinter_ 's sprawling set.

Floréal, whose solo comes before their group number, is almost vibrating next to him, checking and rechecking her shoes for holes or scuffs in the wrong places, since she's been slowly working to break them in all semester. “Tell me I'm not going to fuck it up,” she says. One of the intermediate modern groups is performing, one of Madame's dances.

“Obviously you're not going to fuck it up.” He shakes her shoulder gently. “Hey. You have offers from four companies. You're going to go out there and blow them all away and get double the offers. I'm pretty sure Le Gros thinks that too, if you don't trust me you should definitely trust him.”

After a second, Floréal smooths down her skirt and relaxes, even if it's only a little bit. “I trust you more. Idiot.” The audience starts applauding, music over, and she tenses again. Only one more until her dance.

Grantaire stands up and grabs her hand. “Come on. Let's watch from the wings.”

They do, silent through the whole next number, and while that group clears the stage, he kisses her on the forehead. “I wish it was a duet,” she says. “I'm sorry we can't do one, for our last showcase.”

“We've got the opera. That's going to have to do it. Now go out there and be amazing.”

When Floréal goes out on the stage, he thinks he recognizes some of the cheers in the crowd—she's been accepted by the Theory group by now, without hesitation, and that's a warm feeling that has him beaming when she positions herself for the beginning of the music, looking off into the wings so she can see him before she starts. It's a classical ballet pas, painstakingly choreographed by Le Gros and Floréal (and a little bit by Grantaire, whenever he watched her practice), and Floréal's position is perfect.

If watching Floréal practice is like watching a piece of engineering, watching her perform is nothing short of art, the kind of thing that reminds him why he dances, because it's a reminder of just how beautiful it can be, when the angles are all right and there's never a hesitation or a stumble. Floréal practically floats, every jump making her look weightless and every pose without a tremble. Grantaire watches the whole time, barely blinking, and makes sure to cheer and clap as loud as he can when she finishes and curtsies for the audience, where he can hear Courfeyrac and Joly and some of the rest of his friends whistling and shouting.

She's sweating but smiling when she comes off stage, and she only allows him a second to hug her before she pulls away. “I have to change costumes, come on, we're on in three more numbers. Think you can follow that act?”

“Almost certainly not.” He grins at her and follows her back to the green room, which is a hurricane of costumes and dancers, doubled in the mirrors they have at the ready. “If you don't get some offers from tonight I'll buy a hat just so I can eat it.”

“Shut up,” she says, but she's smiling.

Their group dance is almost an anticlimax after that. Grantaire knows it perfectly (Le Gros wouldn't have let him set foot on the stage otherwise) and he makes sure to dance it just as perfectly, to follow the music and Floréal and Irma on either side of him, except during his feature. When he's at his best, the world narrows until it's just the stage he's on, nothing off it mattering it all, and he finds himself surprised when the music stops and the applause starts, a few of his friends shouting his name, rowdy over the rest of the polite applause.

By the time he and Floréal leave the stage, Grantaire is half giddy and half full of the gnawing feeling he gets whenever he knows he's doing something for the last time, and the combination leaves him fidgety and in need of an outlet. Floréal, judging by her expression, has the same opinion, because she laces her arm through his before he can go to find the suit Le Gros ordered him into for after the show, when he's supposed to be introduced to any number of people. “Are we going out for unhealthy food tonight?”

“Obviously, yeah.” He swallows. “It's our last showcase.”

Floréal nods, frowning. “Just us, okay? Find me when you're finished meeting everyone Le Gros wants you to meet, or I'll do the same, and we'll do it just the two of us. No boyfriend, no friends, we're going to have a big celebratory meal with them after the opera anyway, I'm willing to bet.”

“That sounds great. You can get a car? I don't want to strand my roommates.”

“Yes, I'm fine for that. Now go get dressed, and come to me when you need your tie done, the scruffy look is great most of the time, but this is basically a job interview.”

Grantaire makes a face. “Don't remind me.”

Floréal rolls her eyes, and if she's a little teary, he's not going to be the one to mention it. “Go on, we're going to be swamped by freshmen as soon as the show is over, get changed.”

*

Grantaire has always hated the time after the spring dance showcase, because it's less a time to be congratulated by his friends and more a time for upstanding community members and supporters of the arts to tell him how much they enjoyed his dancing. As a senior, he discovers within five minutes of the show being over, it's worse, because he barely has time for a hug from his roommates before Le Gros grabs him by the sleeve and tows him away.

“There are four company directors I want to introduce you to tonight,” he says, “and a few more who have expressed interest in staying for the opera who you should talk to as well. Be charming.”

“Great,” says Grantaire, and lets himself be introduced. Floréal and Irma are both in their own small knots of people, Le Gros having already arranged the crowd to his satisfaction, so he's on his own, gearing up his best smile as Le Gros introduces him to several people whose names immediately escape him.

A few of the people he's introduced to seems genuinely interested, and a few are ones he's actually been exchanging e-mails with. Still, Grantaire has never been very good at small talk, and between that and his post-performance exhaustion, he doesn't think he makes a very sparkling conversationalist. It's less than half an hour before he finds himself standing stranded in the middle of the crowd without anyone to talk to, Floréal halfway across the room having a vivacious conversation with a woman whose sleek bun and steel-straight posture mark her as a dancer and his friends all in a merry crew near the door.

“Grantaire,” says Enjolras from a few feet away, startling him, and Grantaire turns to find him with an expression he has no idea how to interpret on his face, something halfway between a tentative smile and worry. “Can I have a word?”

Grantaire looks around, but Le Gros is busy with the Dean and everyone else is too far away to sweep in to provide some kind of buffer. “Sure. Is something wrong?”

“No, I just want to get out of the crowd for a moment.” Enjolras gestures a few feet away. “There's an alcove.”

There isn't much to do but go into the alcove, since it's close and Enjolras clearly has something important to say, but Grantaire knows it's a mistake, because he knows how small it is, and when it's he and Enjolras there, they have no option but to be close enough to almost be touching, close enough that Enjolras will be able to tell if Grantaire isn't looking at him directly. “To what do I owe the honor?”

To his surprise, it's Enjolras who looks away and down, hands curled halfway into fists at his side. “I wanted to tell you how well you did, mostly. It was a beautiful dance. And I wanted to say that I'm sorry you didn't get a solo. You deserved one.”

Grantaire shrugs. Now that it's over, with _Midwinter_ still ahead of him, he can be philosophical about it. “Blame Combeferre, not yourself. It's not like you're the one who talked me into the opera.”

“I'm mostly … I'm mostly sorry I didn't get to see you dance on your own. I don't get to see it often during _Midwinter_ , just you dancing with my hindering you or you partnering Floréal.”

“You've seen me dance plenty,” Grantaire says, bewildered.

“I don't know how many more ...” Enjolras still isn't looking at him, and it's strange, makes Grantaire want to duck his head until he can catch Enjolras's eyes, but he's worried about what he might see. “I took the job with New York Opera.”

Grantaire blinks, thrown off course, and then grips Enjolras's shoulder, because this the kind of news that seems to beg a response, and Enjolras is a tactile person. “Jesus, that's great, I'm really glad you're doing it.”

“I probably shouldn't have told you on your big night, but I wanted to tell you before … I wanted to tell you.” Enjolras looks up at him, dropping the nervousness and straightening his shoulders, suddenly so fierce it makes Grantaire swallow, the alcove feeling half its size. “I wanted to tell you,” he says again.

There's got to be some kind of answer to that, but Grantaire's throat has gone dry and all he can do is stare helplessly. Enjolras seems to take it as an answer, though, because he leans his weight into Grantaire's hand, still on his shoulder, and sways close enough that Grantaire can feel breath against his mouth, and it's impossible, it's nothing Grantaire can begin to understand. “What are you—” he starts, voice strangled, and is answered halfway through the question when Enjolras's lips touch against his.

Almost instantly, he pulls away again, but he doesn't say anything, doesn't wait for Grantaire to collect himself. He's so close, still, and his breath shudders in before he presses a soft kiss against first one corner of Grantaire's mouth and then the other, and Grantaire lets him, head spinning. He thinks he's fallen back against the wall of the alcove, but Enjolras is still right there, taking up all the air, a solid presence, the fabric of his jacket crumpling in Grantaire's hand.

“Please,” Enjolras whispers, and Grantaire doesn't know what he's asking for, but his mouth is still right there, and Grantaire changes his grip to pull him in and kiss him, moving his mouth slowly against Enjolras's, not daring to move beyond that. Enjolras's lips are soft and he knows exactly what to do with them (Enjolras always knows exactly what to do with his mouth), and he's shaking a little, so slightly Grantaire almost thinks it's his imagination.

Enjolras's mouth leaves his, but only so he can trail a soft line of kisses down Grantaire's jaw, and it's—tender is the word Grantaire wants to use, like Enjolras has followed this path before, with his eyes, like Grantaire does the line of Enjolras's neck and the wrinkle he gets on his forehead when he frowns, and he doesn't know what to do with that, _can't_ do anything but tip his head back and memorize everything, the way Enjolras's hair tickles his neck and the sound of them breathing, both unsteady.

“Grantaire?” says someone outside the alcove, and it takes a second for Grantaire to realize it's Floréal. “Have you seen my friend, with the dark hair?” she asks someone who must be standing close. “Someone said he was over here.”

In an instant, he's pushed Enjolras off, and he whispers his next words in a rush. “I told her I would go out to eat with her. We'll—later. Congratulations again on New York.”

Enjolras doesn't say anything, just stands there wide-eyed, and Grantaire can't wait, because Floréal will remember the existence of the alcove sooner rather than later and she can't find them like this, because he can't explain and she'll make Enjolras do that, and he can't take that. He can't hear whatever Enjolras has to say, because it can't be what he wants to hear, so he straightens his collar and ducks out of the alcove, almost walking right into Floréal, who puts her hands on her hips the second she sees him. “What were you doing in there?”

“Calling my grandma,” he says, pulling his phone out of his pocket. It's a lie, and he'll tell her the truth soon, but he can't now, because Enjolras will still be listening. “Ready to go?”

“Le Gros said I'm done, I got six business cards and I'm supposed to call and line up some real talks.” She grins up at him. “How about you?”

“Nothing that specific, but a few made a point of saying they'll be at the opera, so I've got some prospects.”

Floréal frowns at him. She probably has a guess that he wasn't actually on the phone, and Enjolras wasn't kissing him hard enough to leave marks, or even ruffle his hair, but he still feels unaccountably like she must know, or be able to guess. “I've got the car,” she says, “so we should go. What do you think, breakfast foods or burgers?”

Grantaire relaxes. He's willing to talk, as long as she waits until they're well out of Enjolras's earshot. “Someday, someone will invent a burger on waffles, and civilization will fall to its knees.”

Floréal grabs his hand, holding on tight enough that she must know something's wrong, but all she does is start leading him away, towards the door, lifting their joined hands at the Theory group across the lobby when they wave and then pointing to the door, making an obvious pantomime of what they're doing. He'll have to accept everyone's congratulations later, but right now being in the same building as Enjolras is making him nervous. “So, how bad?” she asks when they make it to the door.

“Pretty bad,” he says, and squeezes her hand. “But we're celebrating right now, so we'll talk about it later.”

Grantaire gets a text before he even makes it to the car, and he turns his phone off instead of checking to see who it is. He'll deal with Enjolras when he has to deal with Enjolras, and not a moment sooner.

**May**

“I'm not going to have the time to tell you all this tomorrow, since the panel of professors is happening too close to the performance itself, so I thought I should say it now,” says Combeferre. He's sitting in a chair on the edge of the stage, projecting easily out to the first few rows of them in the audience, the orchestra and the cast and the crew and even Montparnasse sitting all together. “First, I want to thank you all. You've made this show, and this year, an amazing thing that it couldn't have been without all of you. And second, you're going to do well. I'll be there in that pit, conducting the orchestra, and I can't wait to hear the applause. You deserve all of it.”

Grantaire isn't the first one to start clapping—he thinks that's Cosette and Courfeyrac, but he joins in as soon as he hears it begin, until everyone sitting out in the audience is clapping for Combeferre, standing up, whistling, like it's opening night after all. Even Floréal, standing beside him, puts her fingers in her mouth to whistle.

“That's enough,” Combeferre says after about thirty seconds, but he's laughing and blushing, and it takes them another minute to calm down completely, though by that point it's mostly the Theory group making a nuisance of themselves. Éponine isn't clapping or anything, just standing front row center beaming at him, and neither of them is exactly talking about what their relationship is, but Grantaire is happy for them anyway.

He catches Enjolras's eye as it dies down, and Enjolras looks like he wants to say something (like he's looked whenever Grantaire has seen him in rehearsal, like his texts say, but Grantaire can't), but Combeferre captures everyone's attention again.

“I'll see everyone who's using this as their capstone or recital at four in the music building tomorrow,” he says over the sound of all of them packing up, shuffling their music and their bags around. “Everyone else, including the orchestra, should be here by six, and tuned or in costume by six thirty if at all possible. Break a leg, everyone, if I don't get to tell you tomorrow.”

That makes the crowd move properly, and Floréal ushers him ahead of her as he makes an escape just a little too fast for dignity. Everyone knows something is going on, can probably feel it on the stage and notice it off, and it's humiliating, but it doesn't make Grantaire any more pleased about the thought of talking to Enjolras and being told Enjolras just wanted to try, was just excited or nervous about his job, any number of “just”s that are all bad options.

“You need to talk to him,” says Floréal when they're outside. It's a warm evening, the first day of May turning out beautifully, and some of the orchestra members they walked out with are already talking about playing some glow-in-the-dark Frisbee on the quad.

Grantaire shakes his head. “You're the one who's wanted him to be about ten thousand miles away from me for the last several years.”

“He hadn't kissed you before. It has an impact, R.” She puts her hand on his arm. “I won't make you, but you should. He can tell you why, and you can deal with it from there. If it's bad, you never have to see him again.”

“If?”

She sighs. “I don't know. It could be okay. He doesn't deserve you, but I want it to happen, because you want it to. Just don't get your heart broken.”

“Easier said than done.”

Her patience with his moping is wearing thin, and he's expecting the roll of the eyes he gets before it happens. Still, she doesn't pull away or smack him, so he hasn't pissed her off too much. “Talk to him, R. The day after tomorrow, preferably. So it doesn't fuck up the show.”

“We'll see.” It's the closest to agreeing he'll get, and she knows it, because she just nods. “Now, do you want to squeeze into Musichetta's car and come home with me for a few hours? We've been making post-rehearsal omelets, lots of protein, you could have one.”

After a second, Floréal sighs. “Sure. Wow me with your egg-cooking prowess. You can give me a ride home when we're sick of each other?”

“Absolutely, I'm great at stealing Musichetta's car keys, especially when she's freaking out about tomorrow night.”

“And you aren't?”

“I absolutely am, but that only makes me a better pickpocket.” He turns them towards the parking lot where Musichetta parked earlier. The others will know to meet him there, unless he texts to tell them differently, and he's less likely to run into Enjolras. “I'll talk to him tomorrow,” he says, and doesn't make it a promise even if he wishes he could.

*

Grantaire wears a suit to the capstone defense less because he actually thinks he needs to and more because it feels like armor, and he definitely needs that.

Everyone else seems to have a similar idea: Musichetta is wearing a rare dress, and Joly and Bossuet are in nice shirts and vests, and when they get there every last one of them is dressed up far more than the contingent of professors, who have time to go home and change before attending the opera in the evening. Combeferre is at the center of the room, the primary one on trial, and to Grantaire's surprise he gestures Grantaire over the second he's through the door, pointing at the empty chair right next to him. “Since you helped me make a lot of the executive decisions for the opera,” he explains when Grantaire just stares. “You'll probably have plenty of questions, we may as well be able to support each other answering them.”

People seem to take Grantaire finding a seat as an opportunity to find their own, and they all manage to get into a rough circle around the table, about the same amount of professors and students. It's not a surprise when Enjolras chooses to sit on Grantaire's other side, but it's a distraction anyway, especially when Enjolras leans over to whisper “I'd like to talk to you afterwards, if I could” just as Lamarque calls everyone to order.

Unlike Jehan's defense, it's more of a conversation than an inquisition, and Grantaire lets himself relax after the first few questions, when it becomes fairly obvious that most of the professors intend to pass them all with flying colors. Le Gros and Madame both ask him questions, about how he mixed the styles, how he worked with Floréal and taught Enjolras, and every time he answers it gets a little easier, and he gets encouraging smiles from Combeferre and all of his roommates and a tiny nod from Enjolras, even when Enjolras isn't looking at him directly.

“Obviously we're going to pass you all,” says Lamarque when it's getting close to five thirty and Grantaire is starting to worry about everyone's ability to get in costume in time and eat something, even if it's just a granola bar. Combeferre, beside him, is twitchy, probably wondering what kind of disasters are being fielded upstairs in the green room, where Professor Javert is in charge. “Technically we can't deliberate and give you each your proper grades until after tonight's performance, but you can all be assured that we've paid attention to your dedication on this project.”

“We all want a chance to eat and prepare before tonight's show,” says Le Gros, with a nod to Grantaire, “so that's all the questions for right now. Grantaire, you'll receive an e-mail by noon tomorrow. Everyone else, whenever your respective advisor has a chance after we've talked tomorrow.”

“Thank you, professor,” says Combeferre, closing his score. “Thank all of you for allowing me the opportunity to do this show, and I hope you enjoy it tonight.”

“Break a leg,” says Fantine, smiling around at everyone. “Now go, I need to run home and change and I'm sure that all of you do as well.”

The meeting instantly dissolves into chaos, and Grantaire knows he could take the excuse to melt into the crowd and run upstairs to eat the sandwiches Joly packed for them, but Enjolras is watching him, still standing right there, and if Enjolras thinks it's important enough to maybe throw them off before their performance, Grantaire will talk to him. “Just a minute,” he says, quiet enough that anyone else listening will know it's eavesdropping and hopefully be polite enough to leave them be. “Meet you in one of the third-floor practice rooms?”

Enjolras nods. He's serious, and determined, and Grantaire's stomach is in knots, less performance anxiety and more worry that Enjolras will apologize to him, will tell him he didn't mean it, will say a hundred of the other things Grantaire doesn't want to hear. “Okay.”

Courfeyrac catches Enjolras's attention then, asking a quiet question, and Grantaire weaves around Combeferre (watching because he knows something Grantaire doesn't, always does when it comes to Enjolras) to catch Bossuet's arm, because Bossuet is the closest roommate. “I'm going to disappear for a little while. Save a sandwich for me, okay? And don't let Floréal come after me.”

“Enjolras?”

Grantaire grimaces. He's owed them all an explanation beyond something weird happening at the dance showcase for most of a week now, but he's not going to do it in a public room. “He wants to talk to me. I'm going to be fine. Seriously, don't tell Floréal.”

“She's scarier than you are.” Bossuet ruffles his hair. “Be quick. We all have to get in costume and you're better at stage makeup than half the people in the cast, we need your help.”

“Ten minutes,” Grantaire says, even though he knows he can't make that promise.

When he turns around, Enjolras is already gone, but that's good. Grantaire doesn't think he could stand a silent walk up the stairs with him. The one he takes on his own, deliberately dawdling as everyone downstairs spills out into the hallway, chatting and keyed up with nervous laughter, is bad enough.

The hallway is dark when he gets upstairs, since almost everyone prefers the rooms on the second floor, and Grantaire can tell in two seconds which room Enjolras is in just because it's the only one with the light on. He knocks on the door and opens it a second later to find Enjolras sitting at the piano bench, tapping something out on the keyboard. “Why tonight?” he asks, because Enjolras, after everything, doesn't seem willing to start the conversation.

“We could have talked about it days ago.”

“And we could talk about it tomorrow.”

“Grantaire ...” Enjolras shakes his head and looks up from the piano. “I'm just tired of not talking about it, and after tonight you could have an excuse to never speak to me again, and I don't want that, I won't lose my chance to talk to you.”

There's nowhere to sit, so Grantaire leans against the door, the knob digging into his back and reminding him he can make a quick escape if he needs to. “So talk.”

Enjolras stands up. “I kissed you.”

“I noticed.”

He knows it's an obnoxious response, and he deserves the scowl he gets for it. “I shouldn't have done it without asking you. I've … this whole year, but especially since February, I've been thinking about it.”

The world seems to drop out from underneath him, and Grantaire grabs for the doorknob more because he needs an anchor than because he intends to run away. Enjolras's eyes widen, though, and he holds out a hand like he wants to stop him, so Grantaire shakes his head, forces his hand to drop again. “Thinking about kissing me? _Why_?”

“Why do you _think_?” Enjolras frowns almost immediately, looking away. “No, you deserve better than that, I'm sorry. I wanted … I wanted to take you out after the showcase, only you left with Floréal. And I want to spend so much more time with you than I get to, and I don't want to lose you when we graduate. And it's too soon to say this, you're supposed to wait to start dating someone to say this, but I've never been very good at keeping secrets, so I love you.”

It's the best-case scenario. It's everything Grantaire never even thought to hope for, and all he can muster is rising panic. “You don't,” he finally says, even though Enjolras never lies. It's the only thing he can say, whether or not it's true.

“I really do, R. And it's fine if you don't, I'd still like to take you out, and kiss you more. If there's a chance you'll get there—”

“I was stupid over you for more than two years, why _now_?”

That brings Enjolras up short, and everything goes out of his expression, even the annoyance from Grantaire contradicting him, and Grantaire hopes he never makes Enjolras go blank again, it's so odd to see. “You were? Does that mean you aren't anymore?”

“No.” It's supposed to be easier, it _should_ be easier now that Enjolras said it first, but he still chokes on the words when he forces them out. “No, I love you. It's just an _again_ , not a still.”

“But you do.” Enjolras is coming alive again, face lighting up, and he takes a step closer. Grantaire nods, and he could close some of the distance between them too, but he thinks the door is the only thing holding him upright. “Do you want to try, then? I want to.”

“You have the worst fucking timing.”

Enjolras's eyebrows go up, and again, he comes closer, like he's trying to get Grantaire used to the space between them shrinking inch by inch. Another step or two, and he'll be close enough to hold. “I wanted to talk about this days ago, but you were avoiding me. And maybe I should have before, this has been building for a while, but I never did it properly until the showcase. So maybe I do have bad timing.”

“I can probably be persuaded to forgive you for that, once I'm reminded a few times that I'm not hallucinating.” Grantaire takes a deep breath and wonders how much time they've spent up here. He has faith in Bossuet to hold everyone off for ten minutes, but Floréal won't be impressed with him if he's late, and Combeferre will want to see Enjolras before he has to go get the orchestra tuned up.

“I can remind you,” Enjolras says before Grantaire can find anything more to say, and smiles so hopefully it makes him a little weak in the knees. “May I kiss you?”

“Yeah, yes, that seems like a great idea.” Grantaire is still nodding when Enjolras moves right into his space, taking hold of the collar of Grantaire's shirt and staying there, watching him but not moving to kiss him. After a moment, Grantaire is the one to do it, lifting one of his hands to rest gently on the back of Enjolras's neck to pull him in and press their lips together.

Enjolras makes a sharp noise and then he's like a force of nature, all the fierceness Grantaire was half-expecting and didn't get in the alcove after the showcase. He opens his mouth against Grantaire's, pushes together until they're touching from lips to legs, bites him gently and then pulls away far enough to grin when it makes Grantaire groan. “Will you come back to my place after the show? If it's not too fast?”

“You're trying to kill me.” Grantaire pulls him again, kisses him open-mouthed and wet, and only lets him go when one of Enjolras's hands slides to grip his shoulder. “I'll come. It's going to be all I can think about while I'm dancing, fuck.”

“We're going to be amazing,” Enjolras says, but before he can do more than lean in, he pauses, and a second later Grantaire hears what he must have heard, footsteps on the otherwise quiet floor. “We need to get ready now, though. Thank you. I didn't want to have this hanging over my head when I went on the stage. The performance is going to be much easier now.”

There's a knock on the wood right next to Grantaire's head. “R? Enjolras?” It's Joly, definitely not the worst option. “That had better be you guys.”

Grantaire has to clear his throat before he can speak above a whisper. “Yeah, Joly, it's us, we were just finishing up. One second and we'll be out.” Joly's footsteps away from the door are so pronounced that he must be stomping. “Easier on you, maybe,” he says quietly, “but my pants are really tight.”

Enjolras looks startled, then amused, then smug. “After the show, after we've shaken hands with everyone, we'll deal with that.”

“Seriously, we can't talk about this until after the show,” Grantaire says, but he knows he's grinning as he opens the door to the practice room, Enjolras following so close that if he stays there they'll trip over each other the whole way down to the green room.

Joly is standing at the door to the stairwell, and he beams at them the second he sees them. “I told Musichetta I wouldn't come back without you, it's not that I don't trust you to come,” he explains. “And also, I'm really glad for you two.”

“I'm glad too,” says Enjolras, and he beams outright for a second before he starts ushering Grantaire towards the stairs again. “Have you got dinner downstairs, R? I need to run to the Union and grab something.”

“Joly has sandwiches for us, because he's winning the roommate of the day award, so you're on your own for that one.”

“Courfeyrac brought you food,” Joly says over his shoulder, already a few steps down. “You and Combeferre, he says you both would have ended up eating chips from the vending machine otherwise.”

“Probably,” says Enjolras, and it sounds like he's smiling. A second later, his hand lands on Grantaire's shoulder, like he needs to be guided down the stairs, and Grantaire pauses long enough to smile back at him before Joly quietly clears his throat and they start walking again.

*

It's easier to focus than Grantaire was expecting, once they're in the green room. Musichetta is waiting with a sandwich, and between she and Floréal, he loses sight of Enjolras fairly quickly. Almost everyone is half-dressed, smearing their makeup while they try to eat and get ready at the same time, the singers fretting about clogging their throats and drinking enough water to sink a boat, and Floréal rushes Grantaire through his meal so she can force his costume on him and take him aside for stretches.

“You disappeared with Enjolras,” she points out quietly when they're found a railing to serve as a barre to warm up their muscles. “Anything to share?”

The words _He loves me_ don't come, less because he doesn't believe Enjolras and more because he knows how his voice would crack, saying them. The smile he can't help probably says more than even that could, though, judging by the way Floréal rolls her eyes, some tension easing out of her shoulders. “Things are good,” he finally says, because he has to say something.

“Good.” She centers herself, looks at her outstretched hand before she continues. “I've been wondering for the past few weeks if he wanted to fuck you, but I don't think you'd be happy about just that.”

“It's more than that.” His voice wavers even on that, embarrassingly, but Floréal just smiles to herself and continues with her warmup until they're called away to the makeup tables.

Grantaire is used to the chaos of a green room before a show, even though he hasn't been involved in something even remotely like this since high school and getting talked into the musicals, and it's easy to relax into it. He catches Enjolras's eye sometimes, in the mirror by the makeup table or when Cosette is fussing with the crown settled on Enjolras's curls, and it seems like every time he looks away someone else is giving them a knowing look. He's not sure whether to blame Joly or Floréal or just how terribly obvious he is for that, but he doesn't really mind, either.

Combeferre comes in five minutes before curtain to inspect them all, when they've been reduced to fidgety silence, and he doesn't give them any of his encouraging speeches, just smooths the cloth over Courfeyrac's shoulders and grips Enjolras's arm and kisses Éponine's temple before he looks at the rest of them. “Break a leg,” he says, and leaves again, off to take his place at the conductor's podium and get his opera started.

*

Most performances Grantaire has been part of are, at best, about eighty percent as good as the best rehearsal. It's expected, the reason he tries to make sure that his best in rehearsal is better than he thinks he can do, but from the first note sung from the stage, while he's waiting in the wings, it's obvious that something is clicking, going right. Titania's attendants blend perfectly, and when Musichetta comes in, it's a gorgeous waterfall of sound, and at the end of the first aria, when Enjolras and Éponine are supposed to enter, they have to pause for the audience's applause.

It's not perfect—Joly and Cosette fuck up a harmony towards the end of the first chorus, and Musichetta is briefly flat in her song with Enjolras—but by the time Grantaire enters he's already buzzing with the energy from the stage and the audience. He climbs up to the upper level and comes in right on time, working his way down the stage to sit on the edge, and listens to Enjolras start singing.

When he drops down into his crouch, a few people in the audience gasp, and Grantaire has to hide his grin by ducking his head before he rises, following the steps he's been doing since the fall, following Enjolras's voice.

Every piece of practice they've done for months and months pays off. Grantaire dances as sharp and clean as he knows how, pirouetting on a dime, exactly where Enjolras wants him whenever he reaches out. The first time he leans his weight on Enjolras, they have an instant of eye contact that makes Enjolras nearly miss a note, and Grantaire is glad to be facing away from the audience so he can grin in the moment of stillness before he starts moving again.

The applause is already starting when he falls to his knees, and he knows his chest is heaving but he doesn't care, just looks up at Enjolras, both of them caught there, Enjolras's hand tangled in his hair, holding on for a beat too long, long enough for Grantaire to think _I can do this again later_ and for Enjolras to receive the message. When Enjolras drops his hand and storms from the stage, the applause is still going, and Grantaire has to take a deep breath before he starts moving again.

Enjolras finds him for a few minutes during intermission, when everyone is keyed up, and Grantaire knows his smile is probably too wide and wild when he catches sight of him, but Enjolras doesn't seem to mind, from the way he pulls Grantaire away with a really stupid excuse and then stands with him in a barely-private hallway with his forehead against Grantaire's shoulder for almost a full minute, just breathing. “Combeferre says we have to stay for half an hour after the show to talk to people,” he finally says, “but he's going to Éponine's tonight, so after that we'll have some privacy. If you want it.”

“I definitely want it,” says Grantaire, or whispers, because it's hard to get a full breath with Enjolras so close. “It's going well, right?”

That makes Enjolras lift his head and grin, just as wide as Grantaire. “Yes. And it's going to keep going well. The show and everything else.”

“Are you two done?” Bahorel asks from around the corner. “Only you're blocking the way to the bathroom and nobody wants to walk in on you two making out, for some reason. Joy says congrats, by the way.”

It's Grantaire's turn to drop his head to Enjolras's shoulder, laughing helplessly, and Enjolras answers. “It's fine, we're just talking. Is Joy here tonight?”

Bahorel comes out of the green room to beam at them when Grantaire straightens up again and spends half of the remaining intermission talking about how glad he is Joy flew back from Europe to see the opera and stay for his graduation. With Bahorel talking, everyone is more willing to come out of the room and refill their water bottles or run to the bathroom, and Enjolras puts his arm around Grantaire's shoulder and doesn't move until places are called again and they have to separate, since they enter from opposite sides of the stage.

Grantaire waits in the wings during the entr'acte in a bundle of nervous energy, and when the lights come up again he centers himself and goes out on the stage, catching Floréal entering from the other side and doing their dance. She smirks at him, a challenge, the first time she turns away from the audience, and he takes her up on it, makes his leaps a little longer, his lifts a little higher, both of them using the whole stage and their whole bodies.

From there, the rest of act two passes quickly and easily, Grantaire mostly part of the crowd, sometimes having a moment to dance with Floréal or to pirouette around Enjolras in echo of his circles in their first number. Musichetta is exiling them before he even realizes how far they've made it, and Grantaire goes to give Enjolras his boost, taking his weight for a second and then pulling himself up behind, like they've practiced a few dozen times by now.

It's different, especially when lifting Enjolras up to the last level. He's gotten used to physical contact between the two of them this year, but there's more weight behind it now. Enjolras meets his eyes the whole time Grantaire is pulling him up and Grantaire can only hope that he's not making a face that's too hopelessly besotted, since Combeferre reminded them all a hundred times that as long as they're on the stage someone is paying attention to them.

Grantaire is second off-stage, after Enjolras strides off like Oberon doesn't care at all that he's lost a kingdom. He looks back, instead, intercepts a look from Floréal, the two of them doing one last pirouette almost in unison before he exits, much slower.

Enjolras is waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs when he gets there, and Grantaire grabs him by the shoulders and kisses him, pressing _him_ against the wall for once, hardly paying attention to the end of the show, the big triumphant number leading up to the bows. Enjolras keeps breaking the kiss by smiling, and Grantaire always mirrors him and then kisses him again. “I can't believe we have to stay half an hour,” Grantaire whispers under cover of the music.

“I want to see everyone tell you how amazing you are,” Enjolras says, and fuck, of course he's going to say things like that now, and it's going to give Grantaire a heart attack.

“Me? What about you, Mr. New York Opera?” Enjolras probably has an answer to that, but Grantaire strokes the line of his jaw and he goes silent, and Grantaire takes advantage of the quiet to kiss him again.

By the time the applause starts, the audience roaring and surprising them both, Enjolras is flushed and his hands have been in Grantaire's hair so much that Grantaire knows it must be a mess. Everyone comes pouring off stage as the curtains close, getting ready to take their bows, and Grantaire steps hastily away from Enjolras even though everyone in their vicinity is grinning and fixes his hair while Enjolras straightens his costume.

“Not coming home with us tonight?” Musichetta asks, loud over the continuing applause as Titania's attendants go out in a line to have their bows, Floréal included.

“I'll see you tomorrow, we'll have an apartment dinner and talk about how awesome tonight was,” Grantaire promises, kissing her on the cheek and getting ready to take his own bow. He's the first to have a solo bow, and he's surprised at the surge in applause that comes when he trots out to bow low for the audience and give a nod down to the orchestra pit.

The rest of the bows go in a blur, the audience on its feet by the time they take their full cast bow, and everyone, cast included, shouts for the author until Combeferre abandons the orchestra pit to take a bow of his own. The second the curtain closes (it's a college production, they aren't doing curtain calls), Grantaire finds himself swept up in a knot of people as the whole cast comes together, trading hugs and ending up in an unproductive knot of limbs. He's caught between Bahorel and Joly, both of them laughing, and he catches Enjolras's eye across the group and laughs a little himself.

“You survived,” he says to Combeferre over the bustle. “What do you plan to do next?”

Combeferre grins. “I do have another opera in mind.”

*

Everyone changes before they go out to make nice with the audience, and Grantaire avoids Enjolras while he does it, mostly because he suspects if they get distracted by each other again someone is going to spray them with water.

Floréal finds him when he's ready to exit the green room and head down to the lobby and puts her arm through his. “Come on, let's find Le Gros, any dance people in the audience will be congregating around him so we can get our hellos out of the way fast and go off and fuck our boyfriends.”

“I'm not sure about the boyfriend thing yet,” he says while they leave the room, since Enjolras is over in a corner talking to Feuilly and Cosette and thus not listening in. “We haven't exactly had time to work on labels, and chances are we're going to be far away from each other next year.”

“Risk of the profession, and considering how much you two have been making out tonight, I'd call 'boyfriend' a pretty safe label. Hell, you'll be lucky if you get to keep that a week before he starts pulling out the 'partner' thing.”

Grantaire grimaces. “Let's not have that discussion yet, okay?”

The lobby is crowded and loud and full of people dressed far too well for a student opera production when they get out there. Grantaire is pulled aside six times before they've even made it a few feet into the room and told how amazing he was, which is strange with Floréal right beside him. At the dance showcases, he gets his fair share of attention, but Floréal is the star of the department. Tonight, though, she takes her congratulations and says “Yes, Grantaire choreographed my part of the dance as well” to a question that starts feeling inevitable after three people.

“There's Le Gros,” he says after the seventh, when more of the cast has made it out to take some attention off him and he catches sight of a cluster of dance people twenty feet away. “Look very purposeful, let's go over.”

Looking purposeful seems to work, since they're only taken aside for two short conversations before they get to Le Gros and the group surrounding him. To Grantaire's surprise, the first thing Le Gros does when he sees them is to actually smile, not just a brief grimace or even a nod, which he breaks out for only the best of performances, but a real smile. “You both did well,” he says, and that's even more surprising. “Grantaire, I want to introduce you to a few people, and Floréal, Ms. de Blemeur over here would like to have a word.”

Grantaire is surprised at how many of the people standing with Le Gros want to talk to him, and how many cards he receives and times he has to scribble down his number on someone's pad. He gets a handshake from Ms. Houcheloup, the company leader from New York who's seemed interested and now only more so, and the half hour Combeferre required passes so quickly that he's surprised when the tap on his shoulder turns out to be Enjolras instead of someone he doesn't know wanting to congratulate him. “Are you almost ready?” Enjolras asks under his breath, taking advantage of Floréal capturing most of the group's attention asking something about how they all enjoyed the non-dance parts of the opera.

“Yes, I'm surprised you got away this fast. Hello.”

Enjolras slides his hand into Grantaire's like it's easy, and maybe it is, since they've been doing it on stage and in the dance studio for so long. “Hello. I'll stay here for a few minutes if you need, because I already have a job so I can be here to support my—you.”

“Your me, huh?”

“For God's sake,” says Le Gros, and Grantaire jumps. “Good job tonight, Grantaire. Check your e-mail tomorrow and I'll have your performance reviewed. Let me know about the outcomes of any of tonight's conversations.”

“Absolutely,” says Grantaire. Everyone else seems to pick up that he's on his way out, and Floréal gives him a thumbs up before she waves him off while Grantaire endures a round of handshakes, Enjolras holding on to his left hand the whole time, and says goodbye to all the dancers who came to see the show. To see _him_ , and that's a weird feeling.

“Is there anyone you want to talk to before we go?” Enjolras asks when they make it away from the group, suddenly awkward now that there isn't anyone there as a buffer.

Grantaire shakes his head. “I think everyone I care about is meeting for lunch in a few days, and that was all my job prospects right there, so I'm set. If you're set.”

“I'm set, I checked with Combeferre and we're clear, though he'll probably be here until one in the morning, with everyone who wants to talk to him.” Enjolras is beaming, looking out at the crowd. The lobby is emptying a little, but there are still plenty of people around and gushing. “How long do you think before it goes up at the Met?”

“Ten years, when we're all famous and can go have a reunion of the original cast,” says Grantaire. He's allowed his moment of sentimentality and optimism, he thinks.

Enjolras seems to think so too, judging by the way he kisses him, and Grantaire looks at the floor when they pull apart because he really doesn't want to see anyone else's reaction to that. “Let's go, okay? I have my wallet and my keys and anything else I left here I can pick up tomorrow. Do you need anything?”

“I can text Joly in the car and ask him to grab my bag and get it home with them.”

“Great.” And then, nonsensically, “Thank you.” He takes Grantaire's hand again. “Let's go.”

*

The ride to Enjolras's apartment passes in total silence. Grantaire texts his roommates and gets exclamation points and innuendo from all of them, enough to make him smile, and he leans against the car window and watches the streets go by while Enjolras drives carefully home and parks in front of his building.

Grantaire gets out of the car before Enjolras has to say anything, and Enjolras comes around the car a few seconds later, grabbing his hand again and fumbling with the other to open the door to the building. Grantaire squeezes his hand and flips the lock again behind them when they get through the door and follows Enjolras up the stairs, dropping his hand so they don't have to walk awkwardly sideways.

The second they're through the apartment door, Enjolras's mouth is on his, his tongue moving between Grantaire's lips. Grantaire answers with the same and tries to move a few steps, staggering over someone's shoes left on the floor and almost stumbling into the corner of the couch, forgetting the layout of the apartment. Neither of them bothered to turn on any lights, and Enjolras seems to realize that a second later, pulling away with a short laugh. “Sorry, I've just wanted to do that all night. Do you need anything? Tea, food, the restroom?”

“I'm going to be ravenous later, but all I want right now is you,” says Grantaire before he can think of anything else.

Any other time, it might be embarrassing, but tonight, it makes Enjolras exhale shakily and reach out to cup Grantaire's face in his hands and kiss him again like he doesn't want to do anything else ever again. When he pulls away, his eyes are closed, and the faint light from the streetlight outside shows how pink his cheeks are. “I'll show you the bedroom, then,” he says.

Enjolras's bedroom is small and oddly-shaped, but it's clean and cozy, done up in blues instead of the red Grantaire expects when Enjolras flips the light on. The bed is big, and the desk is pulled up right next to it so Enjolras must use it as a chair as well, and Grantaire takes off his jacket since it seems the logical first step. His tie has been in his pocket since the second they walked out of the arts center.

It seems to startle Enjolras, though, from the way he blinks and then stares before Grantaire even touches the buttons on his shirt cuffs, looking up from where he's rummaging in a box on his dresser. “Oh.”

Grantaire drops his hands. “Let me know if I'm going too fast, here. I don't want to assume—”

Enjolras moves towards him, a flash of foil moving from his hand to his shirt pocket, a condom, fuck. He's actually going to have sex with Enjolras, whose eyes are dark and who rests his fingers on Grantaire's cheek and says “Please assume. You're just very distracting. Can I take off your shirt?”

In answer, Grantaire starts on his cuffs, and in a second Enjolras is busily undoing the buttons down the front, both of them in something like a race and fumbling with their haste. The second he's free, Grantaire shrugs the shirt off, and then he pushes at the shoulders of Enjolras's jacket, kissing him when Enjolras takes the hint and removes it. “I want to blow you,” he says against Enjolras's mouth, and Enjolras makes a quiet pained noise and wraps his arms around Grantaire's waist. “I've been thinking about it every time we finished our number, when I'm just kneeling there, I want to do it for real.”

“Fuck, please.”

That's all the encouragement Grantaire needs. He doesn't care about the rest of his clothes, just drops to his knees right there, settling himself and sliding his hands up the legs of Enjolras's pants to grasp his hips and leaning in to press his lips against the fabric where it's tented in front, Enjolras growing harder by the second. Enjolras gasps above him, and Grantaire does it again, nuzzling in a way that must feel good judging by the way Enjolras's knees lock for a second before Grantaire tightens his grip on Enjolras's hips, reminding him that he has him.

He expects Enjolras's hand in his hair when Grantaire unzips Enjolras's fly with his teeth, one of his few showy tricks, but despite the way his breath comes fast, he isn't touching Grantaire. When he looks up, Enjolras is paused halfway down the buttons of his shirt, watching Grantaire with the kind of intensity he'll never be able to get used to. “Do your button?” he asks, since doing that with his mouth won't be sexy.

In a second, Enjolras abandons his efforts with his shirt to undo the button on his fly and shove his pants and his underwear down his hips, far enough that they must be hobbling him. Grantaire drops his hands long enough to push them down the rest of the way, to his ankles where he can step out of them when he gets a minute, and then he concentrates on Enjolras's cock, moving in close to kiss Enjolras's hip where his hand has been resting, sucking until he gets a reaction, a choked gasp. “Condom,” says Enjolras when he has his air back, and when Grantaire raises a hand, Enjolras presses it into his palm, free of its wrapper.

He has to pull back to roll it on, and he takes the opportunity to watch Enjolras while he does it, every minute change of expression as Grantaire puts it slowly on. “Ready?” he finally asks, when it's properly settled and Enjolras already looks wild and shaky.

“Fuck, R,” says Enjolras, and Grantaire takes it as permission, moving forward and taking Enjolras as deep as he can for a second just to enjoy the way his whole body goes stiff like he's been electrocuted before Grantaire pulls off and starts sucking at the tip. “Fuck, I've wanted this forever.”

Grantaire hums his agreement, and finally, Enjolras's hand lands in his hair, catching and tugging in the curls, pulling just hard enough that there's a little tingle in his scalp. He wasn't tentative or gentle about it on stage, but now there's something new in it, almost possessive, and Grantaire moans and takes more of Enjolras into his mouth.

It's been a while since he did this for anyone, since he went to New York with Floréal, but Enjolras doesn't seem to care, judging by the half-words he gasps out above Grantaire, his name and compliments that Grantaire doesn't have to hear to understand. Grantaire does his best to be worthy of every compliment, works Enjolras to the edge with all the skill he can muster and keeps him there with luck and timing, until Enjolras's hand tightens to the point of pain in his hair. “Grantaire, please,” Enjolras says, clear among all the nonsense.

“It's all on you,” Grantaire says, pulling off. “Whenever you're ready.” He goes back in, taking Enjolras deep and keeping him there, until he knows he'll feel this in his throat in the morning, that he'll wake up and be able to hear the evidence in his own voice. Enjolras stops trying to speak, but he keeps making sounds, high in his throat, and Grantaire has to palm himself through his pants because he needs the pressure, needs the friction.

Enjolras comes without much more warning than more of his weight suddenly on Grantaire's body, and he goes silent through it, head tipping forward until his hair is in his eyes and Grantaire can't see him, even though he's looking. When he finishes, Grantaire moves away, close enough that Enjolras doesn't have to move his hand but far enough that he can catch a full breath. “Fuck,” Enjolras finally says, and then he's a flurry of motion, pulling Grantaire to his feet and kissing him even though Grantaire must taste like latex. “Get on the bed and get out of your clothes, I want to return the favor.”

Grantaire swallows, light-headed with the suddenness, but while Enjolras steps out of the last of his clothing he shucks off the rest of his, not caring that everything is going to be wrinkled in the morning and that he'll still have to go home in it, and goes over to the bed while Enjolras disposes of the first condom and finds a second. “Where do you want me?” he asks, since there are options.

“Anywhere I can have you,” Enjolras says unhelpfully, but then he's there again, another condom packet in his hand, climbing on the bed and pulling Grantaire with him, pushing him over on his back and then moving until they're pressed together, skin-to-skin, and Enjolras can kiss him, his hands moving slowly over Grantaire's chest when Grantaire wants anything but slow, when he's _aching_. He lets Enjolras do what he wants, though, arching into each movement, into the way Enjolras moves his lips like he's still talking even as Grantaire swallows all the sound. Grantaire has never been loud in bed, but now there's a sound behind each exhale, and he only lets them get louder, because Enjolras clutches him tight every time he does.

“Please,” Grantaire says when it all seems like too much and he's worried he may come just from this, kissing Enjolras while Enjolras puts his hands all over him.

Enjolras pulls away and grins, and instead of answering or going back to Grantaire's mouth, he kisses down Grantaire's neck, his collarbone, his chest. He seems to want to explore every contour of Grantaire's body, and only confirms it when he says, almost to himself, “Fuck, you're _incredible_.”

“I'm a dancer,” Grantaire points out, because he knows just what his body looks like and he knows why.

“You are,” Enjolras agrees, and bites his nipple, soothing the ache immediately with his tongue. His hand has drifted to rest just above Grantaire's cock, holding his hips down less by pressure and more by presence. “I've only done this once,” he says when he lifts his head. “Tell me if I'm doing it wrong.”

“Pretty much nothing you could do would be wrong right now.” He watches as Enjolras rolls on the condom, businesslike instead of teasing, and then he resituates himself on the bed until he can bend over Grantaire's cock and trace a path over it with his fingers and then with his tongue. “God,” Grantaire says, closing his eyes. If he watches, he's going to go off in less than a minute.

“Touch me however you like,” says Enjolras, and then his mouth is occupied.

He doesn't take Grantaire very deep, but then again, he doesn't need to. He's thorough instead, explores every inch of Grantaire's cock with his tongue like he wants to have it memorized, or perhaps his reactions memorized. Grantaire keeps his hands gentle in Enjolras's hair so Enjolras can pull back easily if he needs to and swears quietly to himself, eyes squeezed shut, to keep still. Enjolras's hand is braced on his thigh and sometimes he strokes it gently like he thinks Grantaire needs soothing, and his hair, falling from its neat post-show ponytail, is tickling wherever it falls.

“I'm going to come,” Grantaire warns when it's too close, when his whole body is tense and he knows he won't be able to last much longer. Even with a condom, it's polite to warn, but Enjolras just stays where he is, giving an encouraging suck and squeezing Grantaire's thigh, and Grantaire comes with a moan that he covers halfway through, not sure how thin the walls are and if Enjolras's neighbors are likely to be listening.

Enjolras is up the bed in a second, completely over any post-orgasm lethargy he had, and he kisses Grantaire until he can hardly breathe, overwhelmed and worried he's imagining it for the first time all night, now that his performance anxiety and the first frantic flush of desire is over. “I love you,” says Enjolras when he pulls away, and his eyebrows pull together like he thinks now Grantaire is going to take it back.

“I love you so much,” he says, and Enjolras kisses him again, clearly gearing up for a second round.

Grantaire is tired, but it's impossible to concentrate on that with all of Enjolras's skin against his, so he follows Enjolras's lead instead, turning on his side and taking off the condom so they can do it all again, slower.

*

“R, wake up.”

Grantaire opens his eyes, groggy and sore and happy, not even a moment's doubt about where he is, because Enjolras is hovering over him, naked and holding out Grantaire's phone. “Good morning.”

Enjolras was looking exasperated, but it melts into a smile the second Grantaire meets his eyes. “Good morning, I love you, your phone is ringing and the number is a New York area code so I thought you might want to answer.”

“You can't say that when I need to catch my phone before it goes to voicemail,” says Grantaire, and snatches the phone away from him, still lying down, to answer it just in time. “Hello?”

“Hello, is this Grantaire?”

“It is.” Enjolras sits on the edge of the bed, eavesdropping without even pretending to do something different.

“This is Martine Houcheloup, with the Corinthe dance company, we've spoken before and I saw you last night. I'm sorry, did I wake you?”

Grantaire blinks, suddenly more alert. “Yeah, morning after a performance and all.” He thinks Enjolras's clock said three thirty the last time he glanced at it. “But that's fine, did you want to talk to me about something, Ms. Houcheloup?”

“I was very impressed with your performance last night,” she says, and Grantaire's heart feels like it might beat its way out of his throat. “You're versatile, which we look for, and you show a lot of promise as a choreographer. I'd like to offer you a place in the company, and have a meeting with you before I leave town tonight. You don't have to make a decision quite yet, but I would appreciate one soon.”

“Yeah, yes, I would … I'd love to have a meeting. Wow. There's a cafe right off campus that serves really good tea, way better than any of the beverages on campus, I could meet you there around three?” He is almost certain that three hasn't passed, but not completely sure, so he crosses his fingers and tries to ignore the way Enjolras has reached out to grip his ankle under the blankets like he needs something to hold on to.

“That sounds great.” Ms. Houcheloup sounds like she's smiling, and Grantaire is pretty sure that he fell into a parallel universe sometime in the last twenty-four hours, the kind of universe where he gets to date the man he loves and gets offered spots on up-and-coming dance companies without an audition. “I know the place you're talking about, I went there for dinner last night, so I won't have trouble meeting you. I'll look forward to talking to you, Grantaire.”

“Yes, you too. Thank you so much. I'll see you then.” He hangs up on autopilot and puts the phone down, and before he has any idea what to do or say finds himself rolled over and pinned down by Enjolras, who's staring at him like he's never seen him before. “What?”

“You're going to be in New York, you're going to be close to me. That's what that was, right? An offer?”

Any other day, Grantaire might tell him he hasn't accepted the offer yet and that they've been together for less than a day and shouldn't even be starting to think like that, but he finds himself smiling helplessly instead. “That was an offer. I'm meeting her at three.” He picks his phone up again long enough to check the time. “Four hours. That's not bad. Okay.” Enjolras is still frozen, and Grantaire loops his arms around his neck to pull him down into a kiss. “There's a chance,” he says when Enjolras starts moving again, bringing a hand up to Grantaire's shoulder.

Enjolras kisses him again and then sits up. “There's more than a chance. Now, are you getting up? I want to make you something to eat before Combeferre gets home.”

Grantaire sits up and lets Enjolras pull him to his feet even though he doesn't really need the help. “I can't wait.”

*

The dance building is always practically deserted during finals week. Most of the dance majors have a backup major, and since their performances are all over by the end of the semester and they usually only have an advisor meeting, the only people who use the studios are people who need to dance to clear their heads.

Grantaire goes in on the Tuesday of finals week, when he's done with the last academic final of his college career and most of the people he knows are taking a history of music final, and he isn't really surprised to find Floréal already at work in their favorite studio. “Haven't seen you in a few days,” he says to let her know he's there when he cracks the door open.

Floréal meets his eyes in the mirror for half a second and then goes back to her warm-up. She's made it about halfway through fourth position, and he comes in and drops his bag, stepping out of his shoes and putting on his dance ones. He'll have some catching up to do, if he wants to dance with her. “You've been kind of busy with the new boyfriend.” He goes over to the barre and starts his own warmup, a quick one, since it's too late to catch up with her. “And with the placement offer.”

“Not just an offer,” he says, because that's why he came to the dance building hoping she'd be here in the first place. “I took them up on it this morning. As of July first, I'm going to be an official member of the Corinthe troupe.”

This time, she stops dancing and drops attitude completely to turn around and give him a hug, holding on tight. “Fuck you, that's amazing,” she says, both sentiments completely honest, and lets him go. “I knew you'd get something good. You aren't going to meet the rest of the troupe before you decide?”

“Ms. Houcheloup had me Skype with a few of them, set up some video so I could watch how their class works. It seems like it's going to be a good fit.”

Floréal returns to position, and Grantaire moves on with his warmup as well. The end of college isn't an excuse to slack on discipline, as Le Gros told him in between congratulations when he had a meeting about the opera and the offers that followed it. “You'll have to see if you can make a spot for me in a year or two,” she says, and he catches the edge of her frown in the mirror as he corrects his turnout and bends into a plie. “Ms. de Blemeur gave me an offer in London. A really great offer. Possibly an offer I can't refuse.”

Grantaire winces on her behalf, but she doesn't stop dancing so neither does he. “How does Wall Street feel about that?”

“He says I should take it, and maybe he can find a job in a company with offices in New York and London so he can see me sometimes, or all the time if there's an opening in the London office.” He lets a few seconds pass in silence while she moves into fifth position. “I want it. I really want it, London has a lot to offer and this is a feeder company for some internationally reputed troupes. It's just really fucking far from you, and maybe from him.”

“But it puts you in a great position to be a world-renowned _prima_.” Grantaire finishes his brief warm-up, though it's short enough that he'll be feeling some strain later if he isn't careful while they dance. “You aren't going to lose me, Flor. You're stuck with me, and you're going to drag me out of obscurity someday to partner you in something badass. And in the meantime, we're going to dance, right?”

Floréal lets go of the barre. “Right. One more time through our duet, for old time's sake?”

Grantaire takes his position in answer. It will be different without the platforms to dance on, but they did it without platforms plenty of times, so it's easy enough to adapt himself, and Floréal is in position a second later. He doesn't need to turn on the music—both of them have it in their heads, still, after listening to it constantly—so the two of them just dance, Floréal smiling before the end. “Let's do some more,” Grantaire says when they finish in perfect pose, and twirls her out so they can keep dancing.

*

The night before graduation, the opera group escapes whatever family has come to town to watch them matriculate and goes to dinner.

Grantaire is late, running behind after checking his grandma into a hotel, but when he gets to the restaurant there's a seat left open between Enjolras and Bossuet, who are talking across it about the horrors of apartment-hunting in New York. “I'm living with you and Joly,” he tells Bossuet when he slips into the seat, Enjolras catching his hand without hesitation. “You'll pine without Musichetta otherwise.”

“We can be the Three Musketeers,” says Joly, leaning across Bossuet to grin at him.

Musichetta, across the table, snorts. “One year in California and I get demoted.”

The three of them slide into an easy squabble about which Dumas characters they should be if living arrangements change (Jehan chips in that Musichetta might have to be the Count of Monte Cristo, and the conversation degenerates rapidly from there), and Grantaire is about to join in when Enjolras squeezes his hand and captures his attention. “Something to add?” he asks quietly, turning around to face him.

“It occurs to me that I'll also be in New York,” Enjolras says, more tentative than Enjolras ever is. “Feuilly too, and probably Combeferre, though there are some fellowship details he's trying to work out still.”

Grantaire leans into his shoulder. “I'm not moving in with you, if that's what you're asking. But the same neighborhood could work.” Enjolras doesn't look happy, and Grantaire kisses him, just a peck so none of their friends tease. “Not yet.”

That makes Enjolras soften up, but if he's going to answer he's interrupted by Combeferre calling the table to order. “I'm not going to make a speech or anything, I just wanted to let everyone know that Montparnasse should be uploading the video within the next week. I'll make sure you all get a link so you can use it in your portfolios and resumes.”

“It's great,” says Éponine, smiling and leaning back in her chair, a hand on Combeferre's back. “Montparnasse showed me the highlights the other day, you should all be excited.”

The waitress chooses that moment to come for their orders, probably wisely since it's the quietest they'll get all night. Grantaire orders off the top of his head, since he hasn't had a chance to open his menu, and turns back to Enjolras as the conversation rises up again, Bahorel and Jehan debating about the feasibility of a movie night sometime over the summer where they get to see the opera as audience instead of cast and Cosette saying in horror that she never wants to see it again, with no offense to the composer. “Do you _want_ to move in with me already?” he says, since it's a question he should have asked before he said anything in the first place.

“Yes, but I also know it's a bad idea. As long as I get to see you, though, I won't complain.”

“That seems fair.”

“Hey, lovebirds, you can do that when we aren't having a big emotional dinner together,” says Courfeyrac, as if he isn't just as bad with Marius and Cosette. “You've got all the time in the world. Right?”

“Exactly,” says Grantaire, and lets himself get captured into a conversation with Feuilly about instrument building. He doesn't let go of Enjolras's hand until the waitress comes with their meals.

*

_Plié, relevé_ , first in second position, then in third, and then a pirouette, as quietly as he can manage.

“Grantaire?”

Not quietly enough, it seems. Grantaire looks out his closet door to find Enjolras sitting up on the bed, his hair tousled, maneuvering himself so he has a sightline on Grantaire's practice space. “Sorry, did I wake you? I couldn't sleep, I can come back to bed if you want, though.”

“No.” Enjolras's sleepiness melts into a smile, and he moves some of the pillows to keep himself upright. “I think I'll just watch for a while.”

Grantaire nods, and centers himself, and starts dancing again.

**Author's Note:**

> There are some terms, especially ballet terms, that may not be familiar in this fic, so I thought I'd put them here. Not every term is defined, but hopefully the less-well-known ones are present. Feel free to ask me if you want to know, though! I don't claim to be an expert but I'm alway willing to answer questions. All written definitions are from the [Glossary of ballet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_ballet) on Wikipedia, and some have helpful videos!
> 
>  **arabesque penché** An arabesque is a body position in which one leg (which may be either straight or plié) supports the body while the other leg is held straight behind the body in open fourth position à terre (on the floor) or en l'air (raised). You can see the penché at approximately 1:04 in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmRrfm1ihGg).
> 
>  **ballon** Showing lightness of movement in leaps and jumps. A dancer exhibiting ballon will appear to spring effortlessly, float in mid-air, and land softly.
> 
>  **deboulé en manège** A fast sequence of half turns performed by stepping onto one leg, and completing the turn by stepping onto the other, the dancers stepping high on the toes and with the legs held very close together. These can be performed in a circle (en manège) or a straight line (chainé). The chainé version can be seen in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKeXDmVFz18).
> 
>  **écarté** Literally "discard", but also flat, like a card. One of the basic positions of the body in which the dancer assumes a position with the body facing downstage on a diagonal and points the downstage leg in second position, along the other diagonal, either touching the floor or en l'air. The arms are held in an attitude position with the arm that is on the same side as the working leg raised in the air and the other arm trailing in second. The gaze is directed nearly to the raised arm along the same diagonal. You can find it at about 0:28 in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxUs3ky8EDc).
> 
>  **entrechat-quatre** "A step of beating in which the dancer jumps into the air and rapidly crosses the legs before and behind." You can find this around 0:24 in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VhxpHgPTy8).
> 
> If you want to know more of the common steps for ballet, I highly recommend the "Insight: Ballet Glossary" videos from the Royal Opera House YouTube channel, they were an invaluable resource during the writing of this story.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] You Dance Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7749409) by [knight_tracer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer)




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